Naruto: The Horror Chronicles
by Tobi wants a cookie
Summary: Welcome, my friends, into the darkness. Enter and you'll find 7 horrifying stories to astound and amaze you. From the darkness of puppets, to the pain of the past, there's much to be afraid of. You'll have to read to discover it all...
1. Master or Puppet?

Welcome my children of the night to the first in a series of Naruto themed horror stories written to celebrate the holiday of Halloween! I prefer to call it, Naruto: The Horror Chronicles. For those of you who don't know because your from a different country, Halloween is a holiday in America where children dress in costumes and go from door to door asking for candy which people give them. It's a general celebration of everything creepy and I love it! I love to spend Halloween eating candy and watching horror movies. It's the only time of the year I really watch many horror movies actually. While I'm in the spirit of the holiday, I'm going to write 7 terrifying Naruto short stories. They'll all focus on different characters and have totally different plots. The only thing linking them will be that they take place in Konoha or near it. As some of you may have guessed from the title of this chapter, this particular story will follow Kankuro as he works for Sasori, the owner of the last remaining puppet shops in Konoha. There's something about puppets that some people have always seemed to find creepy, and I can't say I blame them when you see the way some of them are designed. This will be one of my shorter chapters, as the story doesn't require a ton of explanation for some of the elements. Most will be longer than this. Sorry this intro was so long, but I had to explain what I was doing. Now lay back, and prepare to be terrified.

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><p>"<em>Maybe from now on puppets can do the parts...they can fight it out between them."<em>

_Helena Bonham Carter_

It was a room that had seen many horrors in the short time it had existed. The room always had a distinct scent of blood and medical equipment, a sickening smell the would make a person nauseous to be inside of it. In the center of the room there was an examination table, with straps on the side so that no one may escape from it. Next to the table was a cart, with tools on it. They were the tools of a man named Sasori, a man who owned Red Scorpion Puppet Shop, the last puppet shop in Konoha.

Sasori was a quiet man, with red hair and a thin build, but he was not exactly a people person. He greatly prefered the company of his puppets, and he was a master of crafting them. It was a passion for him, creating puppet. For him, every cut had to be perfectly smooth and all of the joints had fit together in just the right way. Creating a puppet made him feel like most people felt when they made love, completely and utterly blissful.

However, Sasori had slowly started to become bored with making his puppets. He tried taking on an apprentice, a young boy with brown hair and muscular build named Kankuro, but that only broke his boredom for a short while. Kankuro had caught on to the craft very quickly, so Sasori hadn't needed to do much work with him.

Finally, after much searching, Sasori had found something that satisfied him. He found that he could give himself more of a challenge if he used harder to work with materials. It started out with something simple, he used metal, then stone, and plenty of other interesting things. One, night, purely by accident, Sasori found the last material he'd ever work with. A material that was so beautiful to work with, he never wanted to work with anything else ever again.

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><p>Sasori could smell wood being sanded as he walked up the stairs from his shop's basement to the main floor. Kankuro must have been hard at work, creating his next masterpiece. The boy was incredibly skilled and Sasori felt he might even surpass him one day. If the boy kept up at his current rate, he would be able to move up from wood to trying out his first metal one. Metal was next easiest to work with, since it light and bendable, sort of like wood.<p>

He got up there and found Kankuro was putting the finishing touches on his best creation yet, Crow. It was made to look slightly like a human, with four arms and multiple eyes. It had a long black mane and sharp teeth. Crow was terrifying and unsettling, not the kind of puppet you'd use in a kid show. A true artist didn't make puppets for kid's shows though, they made them to be a work of art.

Sasori walked over and examined Crow, "Beautiful craftsmanship and it draws out a clear reaction from people. Excellent work Kankuro."

Kankuro did his best not to beam from the praise. He thought very highly of Sasori, "Thank you sir, it's an honor to hear you say that."

Sasori put a hand on her shoulder, "Nonsense Kankuro, there's no need to so say something like that. You and I are friends."

Kankuro was focused on his puppet, but he still hear what Sasori said, "Yeah, like my only friend. The guys I go to school with find this to be a pretty weird hobby."

Sasori had a similar problem when he grew up. People thought what he did meant there must be something wrong with him, "People like us don't need to make friends with people like them. They are the puppets, and we are the masters."

Kankuro had heard him use that saying often. It meant that they had found what had made them truly happy in life, and those who hadn't just didn't understand. They were puppets who just kept following the crowd, "That's my favorite way to look at it. Hey Sasori, if we're friends, then can I ask you a question?"

"Of course," Sasori said like it was nothing, "Ask me anything you'd like."

Kankuro had been wondering this for a long time, "How come you won't tell me what you do in the basement? You're down there for hours upon hours a day, but you refuse to tell me what you do. Do you not trust me or is it just really personal?"

Sasori, who had been rummaging through old parts up to this point. Suddenly stopped and got nervous. He had to answer the next question carefully, as it could have catastrophic results if he said something stupid, "I guess that you could say it's a little bit of both. I do trust, but this is an extremely personal matter and I have to be very careful about who I tell."

Kankuro looked a little down, "Oh, okay. I understand."

Sasori really did like Kankuro, so he felt kind of bad about all this. Kankuro was the only person he ever saw as being worthy of being his apprentice. He thought that he might even be able to share his darkest secret with him. Maybe there was something he could do, If he felt Kankuro was worth it, "Kankuro, what do you think my work?"

Kankuro practically got starts in his eyes. Most people annoyed him, but Sasori was almost like a god, "Of course, it's the most brilliant stuff I've ever seen! The flawless way they move, the dark gritty way they look, and the way you use the material are just fantastic. I'm getting to watch the master at work!"

Sasori was pretty satisfied with that answer, "Good, now do you think that there should be limits on what an artist is allowed to do?"

Kankuro had to think about that one for a second. It was hard to really think of an answer for this one, "Well, I can't really think of anything. I would say that it should be something that can't harm people, but that might be too limiting for certain things. The best an answer I can come up with is an artist should know where to draw the line."

Sasori felt that was a very reasonable answer, "Okay, it sounds like you and I are pretty much on the same page. How about you come by early tomorrow and I'll show you what I do in the basement. Maybe I'll even teach you a little bit about how I do it."

Kankuro didn't need to be asked twice, "Of course! What time do you want me to be here?"

Sasori thought about that for a second, "Oh, I think that an hour early should do it. Will that work for you?"

Kankuro wouldn't have said no, no matter what Sasori had asked, "Of course, I'll be there an hour early on the dot. I've gotta get home, but I'll see you tomorrow. Thank you so much for this."

Sasori smiled as he watched Kankuro leave, "See you tomorrow indeed. Let's hope I've made the right choice with you."

As Kankuro was running out, someone else was walking in. Sasori hadn't ever met him before, which would make things easier, "Hello sir, may I help you?"

The man looked around and nodded, "Yes, you can. I'm hoping to buy one these for my son, his birthday's coming up."

Sasori got something from under his desk and scowled, "These aren't children's toys sir, they're art."

The man nodded as he examined one of the puppets, "I know, my son is 23 years old. He's a fan of darker forms of art and I think he'd enjoy one of these."

Sasori lightened up a little at hearing that, "I see. Well in that case, please look around and find one that you think he'd like. I warn you though, a lot of work goes into these. They're expensive because of that."

The man seemed a little uncomfortable, "I'm not looking for what I like to be honest. Stuff like this creeps the hell out of me, but my son loves it. Nothing against the guys who make them, I just think you've gotta be kinda fucked up in the head to make stuff like this."

"Clearly he's a puppet and not a master," Sasori muttered under his breath.

The man turned to him and asked, "What was that?"

A small hammer became visible in Sasori's hand, "Don't worry about it."

He hit the man in the head with the hammer, knocking him unconscious. Sasori gave a dark smile as he grabbed the man by the shoulders and started to drag him somewhere, "Good bones structure, a nice bit of muscle, and you seem pretty clean. You'll be perfect for Kankuro's big day…"

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><p>Kankuro felt like he was about to explode, he was so excited that Sasori was gonna share his greatest secret with him! This meant the man he admired most truly trust him. He was going to the shop right now to see him, which meant it was almost time to find out the truth. It really bugged Kankuro that Sasori was afraid to show him something, but now he could show him that he was worth being trusted.<p>

He pushed the door to the shop open, but Sasori didn't seem to be anywhere in sight. Just the usual puppet parts and tools. Kakuro called out, "Sasori, you here?"

His teacher could barely be heard from downstairs, "I'm in the basement Kankuro! It's unlocked, so come on down!"

Kankuro opened the door to the basement and went down, immediately being hit by the smell of the place. It was pretty bad, and Kankuro almost thought about turning around, but he wasn't gonna do something like that. He ran all the way down, the smell getting stronger as he did.

Sasori was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, blocking a hallway that had doors on each end, "Hello Kankuro, I'm so glad you could make it."

Kankuro could hardly contain his excitement right now. He rarely showed this much emotion, "Of course, I wouldn't miss it for the world!"

Sasori started to walk down the left end of the hallway, "The first thing I must show you is my gallery. It's where I keep my best work. You should feel honored, because I've never shown it to anyone else."

"Oh yeah, I'm very honored. To see something that's your best work, now that's gonna be amazing," Kankuro replied, the smile never leaving his face.

Sasori walked over to the door and opened it, "Well then behold, the greatest examples of my genius."

He opened the door, revealing one of the most shocking things he'd ever seen. It was a cement room, with three puppets chained to the walls. However, they weren't typical puppets. On each wall hung a human corpse that had been cut up and put back together like a puppet. Some kind of chemical seemed to have been used on them, likely to harden the skin. All of them had different alterations made to them. A woman had been shaved and spikes had been put into her head, a man wan had his right and left legs switched. Another had pieces of it's skin cut off to make various symbols.

Kankuro looked around at all of the blood and macber that surrounded him, "Sasori, what is all of this?"

Sasori looked over his work with pride, "They're my masterpieces! A human canvas, what could possibly be better? You can give the work true emotion, true life! Don't you see how beautiful all of this is?"

Kankuro just kind of stammered, "How...how did you even come up with this?"

Sasori walked over to one of puppets, adjusting it's leg, "There was a man who came to my store, seeking to rob me of my work. It took some effort, but I was eventually able to subdue the man. For me, subduing him meant he had to die. At first I thought that maybe I should call the police, but then I saw the look on his face and the way sprawled out on the floor. It made me realize just much real emotion my puppets were lacking."

Kankuro swallowed hard, "Which one was he?"

Sasori pointed to the guy on the right side of the wall, "Oh, that's him. He was my first. With him I was able to convey such fear and passion! There's nothing more powerful to work with than flesh and blood."

Kankuro had fear in his soul, "This is all...I mean this is all just…"

Sasori knew how the boy was feeling, "I know, I was skeptical at first too. When I started with all this, I felt disgusting, but when I saw my results...it was like magic."

"You wouldn't kill me if I said no, would you?" Kankuro asked, his voice shaking.

Sasori shook his head, "No, of course not. You're a master, like me. Just because humans are my canvas, doesn't mean they have to be yours. I do ask that you tell no one else about my hobby though, as I know they wouldn't approve."

Kankuro couldn't deny the amazement of the human puppets, "I wasn't saying no. How do you know the police won't find you and arrest you? Or worse?"

Sasori felt confident he wouldn't be captured, "All they know is that these people were missing. They told no one where they were going, so all the cops would know is that someone went missing. We're totally safe here. These people are puppets, they're not truly happy. We're just freeing them from their mediocre lives, that's all."

Kankuro's heart was racing. This was all insane, it was so much for him to comprehend. If what Sasori said was true and they couldn't be caught, then why not? Puppets lived a sad little life, there were better off as tools for the masters. As crazy as it seemed to sound, Kankuro had a hard time fighting Sasori's logic, "I guess that I could try it… at least once I mean."

Sasori's eyes suddenly lit up with anticipation, "Yes, I knew you'd give it a shot. Please, come with me. I've got something I just have to show you."

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><p>Kankuro found himself lead down the hallway to the room on the other side. He got inside to find a man was strapped to the table, completely knocked out. It seemed that he was still alive, as he was clearly breathing. Sasori walked over to a small try that was next to the table and handed it to Kankuro, "As the artist, I'll let you choose how he dies. I wouldn't recommend slitting the throat however, as that's very messy and difficult to clean up."<p>

Kankuro looked over the tools on the table. There was a hammer, a knife, a blowtorch, and many other things. After much debating, Kankuro picked up a syringe and a small bottle of toxins that he knew would kill the man fast. Sasori seemed intrigued by his choice, so Kankuro explained, "I don't want to damage any of the skin. I'd prefer to have more to work with."

Sasori got a look of understanding on his face, "I see. Well I can't fault you for that. I'm going to stand back and let you craft at your own pace. If you have any questions, I'll be right behind you."

Kankuro gave a short nod and turned to the man, putting the syringe in his arm. There was no turning back now. Just like his hero, he was a true artist.

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><p>For the next few days, Kankuro spent as much time as he could at The Red Scorpion. A true masterpiece took time to make. Sasori had taught him everything he could've ever wanted to know about making a human puppet. Moving limbs, removing skin, taking out bones, hardening the body, and so much more. The man Kankuro was reinventing was someone Sasori felt was deserving of this treatment.<p>

There had been a small amount of fear caused by the man, due to the cops coming to the shop to ask about him. However, Sasori kept his cool and simply said that the man had been here, but left and never returned. The cops had no reason to doubt him, since this was the first time they'd questioned him. Sasori knew that he could move away from Konoha if need be, so he was still pretty safe.

After day's of cutting, slicing, and rebuilding, Kankuro was finally finished. When he was done, he stepped back and admired his work, just as his master had done. The man's eyelids had been cut off, causing him to stare at you constantly with unsettling eyes. His legs had the bones taken out of them, causing them to just hang there lifelessly. The arms were twisted around and switched and his lips had been cut off, causing his teeth to show. That was just the basics of what Kankuro had done, but even if he'd just done those few things is would be unsettling.

Kankuro couldn't believe it, but this whole thing made him so alive, "Wow, look at it. I did that, I made something that draws out ture horror and fear in a person. This is truly art."

Sasori was very proud of his apprentice, "Well done Kankuro. I feel you have quite a future in the art of human puppetry."

Kankuro had one issue though, "It's nice, but it's just not perfect."

Sasori didn't understand, "What do you mean? I think it looks fantastic."

Kankuro frowned as he looked at his creation, "It is fantastic, just not perfect. There's not enough emotion in the man's face, ya know? A man is good material to work with, but a master would be better."

Sasori started to see what he meant, "I suppose you're right. Perhaps one day you and I can go find a master to make a puppet out of?"

Kankuro turned to Sasori and got a rather dark smile on his face "Don't worry, I've already got the perfect person in mind."

Kankuro had been holding a large butcher's knife in his hand that Sasori hadn't thought anything of. He thought something of it now though. The younger puppeteer swung at him with the knife hard, Sasori barely avoid it cutting his neck open.

Sasori took out a small knife the he kept in his pocket and tried to stab Kankuro with it. It didn't even phase the younger man who dodged it easily. They were dead set on killing one another and turning the loser into a puppet. It was brilliant battle of two madly disturbed men.

Kankuro got a good slice on Sasori's arm, making the man screaming. Sasori retaliated by burying his knife into Kankuro's shoulder and pulling it out quickly. It wasn't quick enough though, as the younger puppet master then swung his knife right into Sasori's gut. Blood slowly began to pour from Sasori, who fell to the ground.

Sasori found Kankuro standing over him, "You've been a great teacher Sasori, but every teacher get's surpassed someday. It was an honor sir, but now it's time to become true art."

This wasn't how Sasori was gonna go out. He used all of the strength to lung up and stab Kankuro just below the groin, hitting his carotid artery. When hit, that causes a person to bleed out in a matter of minutes. Kankuro fell to the ground as well, dying with his teacher. The two of them looked at one another, but there was no anger in their eyes. It was respect that they shared with one another. They were artist, just trying to make the best art that they could.

Sasori gave Kankuro a bloody smile, "Death by a fellow master...I can think of no better way to die."

Kankuro couldn't have agreed more, "Yes...thank you Sasori...for making me a master…"

Those were the last words the two ever spoke. Two artists laid in their own blood, dying together, surrounded by human puppets. It was a macabre masterpiece.


	2. Wrath of the Tsukuyomi

Hello there everyone, and welcome to another chapter of terrifying fanfiction! I'm guessing that most of you knew that I couldn't do this without having a Sasuke and Itachi related one. This fanfic will be heavily by the Stephen King classic '_It'_. While I'll be the first to admit the book does have it's flaws, particularly the extreme amounts of fluff and bizarreness that appears in the book, one thing that is undeniably excellent with the novel is the books primary antagonist, It, aka, Pennywise the Dancing Clown. It's hard to explain to those of you who've never read the book exactly what It is, but all you need to know is that the creature in this fanfic will be heavily based of from It. Time to show you what I mean.

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><p>"<em>The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"<em>

_Winston Churchill_

There were a lot of things that people feared in this world. Many hated spiders, not a ton of people were fond of snakes, and it seemed almost everyone was afraid of falling. Hell, people were actually born with that fear. However, none of those things scared a 17 year old boy named Sasuke as much as a cross country trip with his older brother Itachi, who was 21. It was Itachi that Sasuke mind persay, it was more the fact that being stuck in cramped car with anyone was not his idea of fun.

Sasuke and Itachi Uchiha were smack dab in the middle in yet another session of packing up and moving to a totally new location. Their father, Fugaku Uchiha, was one of richest men in the nation, and this often forced them to move with him in order to let him explore a new business venture. Both looked a lot like their father's, with thin builds and black hair, also onyx eyes to top it all off. It wasn't hard to tell the two of them were related.

They were heading to a small city known as Konoha, which was apparently ripe with financial potential. Lot's of up and coming business and what not. Fugaku was very glad to have Sasuke and Itachi living there for awhile, because it was the perfect place to teach them more about how to really make money. Sasuke had always felt a little bit of resentment towards his brother because, while Sasuke was great at it too, Itachi seemed to be a natural master of the art of business. Even though he didn't care much about money, Sasuke hated to lose to his brother.

Itachi had one hand on the steering wheel of his car right now and the other hand was edging towards the passenger seat right over his sleeping brother's forehead. He kept his eyes on the road as best he could, not that there was a lot around him to see, they were in a the middle of a desert right now, as he flicked his brother hard on the forehead, waking him up.

Sasuke looked at his brother in anger, "Hey, what the fuck man?"

Itachi laughed a little bit, "Sorry Sasuke, I just need to wake you for a second. Got any place you wanna get a bite to eat? I'm fucking starving right now."

Sasuke looked out the window at the little bushes and large rocks that filled the desert, "I don't know, I'm not even hungry right now."

Itachi picked something up of from the dashboard, "Need to work up your appetite a bit?"

Sasuke knew a joint when he saw one, "You know dad's gonna kill you if he find out you have that thing?"

"No he's not. I'm gonna have the windows open the whole time and I know you're not gonna tell him," Itachi said, offering him the weed once again.

If that was the case, Sasuke felt it was safe. He took the joint and started to light it up. He had been more worried about Itachi getting in trouble than he had been that he would. Although you wouldn't know it from spending just a little bit of time with them, Sasuke and Itachi were incredibly close. They were rivals in everything, but that was natural for brothers. There had only ever been one time Fugaku had found one of their joints and it had been Sasuke's. Itachi, being the great brother that he was, took the blame for it without even asking Sasuke if that was what he wanted. Although he got a harsh scolding, Itachi didn't get in as much trouble as Sasuke would have since he was older. Things like that were something the brothers were more than willing do for one another.

Sasuke started to take some hits from the pot and Itachi asked him, "So did that give you any ideas for food?"

Sasuke thought about it for a second, took another hit, then said, "Yeah, some bacon-cheese burgers with chilli fries and a nice milkshake."

Itachi took the weed and smoked it a little himself, "Shit man, that's a good idea. There's probably gonna be a dinner coming up here soon. My phone said we should be hitting a town in like 15 or 20 miles. Think you can wait that long?"

"Yeah, if you put some music on. Why are we just sitting here in silence for fuck's sake?" Sasuke asked, getting tired of his voice and his brother being the only sources of noise in the car.

Itachi pointed to glove box, "You know where the CD's are. If you wanna listen to music then listen to some damn music."

Sasuke opened the glove box and very happy his brother had the same taste in music that he did. He found some AC/DC and popped it in the radio, starting off with "_Rock n' Roll Ain't Noise Pollution." _They enjoyed the music as they took turns taking hits from the joint. That had both of them more than content for the time being

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><p>Itachi was correct about the town not being far away, as they arrived at the town in just over 10 minutes. There was an old looking dinner with the a sign in the windows that said 'Burgers!' They pulled into there and got out of the car, Sasuke being glad to finally stretch his legs, "Aw man, how long were we driving for?"<p>

Itachi looked at his watch and saw that it was about 5:45 PM, "It's been two hours since our last stop. By the way, you're driving once we're done here. I need to take a nap of my own."

Sasuke didn't care about that, "Not a bad idea, you smoked a lot of fucking weed in there. A lot more than I did anyways."

Itachi couldn't argue with that one, "Yeah, and all that weed has me starving. Let's get in there already and get something to eat."

Sasuke rolled his eyes a little bit and then followed his brother inside of the old diner. It looked like something out of an old movie from the 1980's, but the food smelled delicious so the Uchiha's didn't care. They sat down, gave their order to a waitress would couldn't seem to decided if she was hitting on Sasuke or Itachi, and then relaxed with some conversation as they waited for their food.

Sasuke looked around the diner to see that almost everyone was talking intensely, "Damn, looks like something big just happened around here."

Itachi had noticed it as well, "Just about everyone seems to have something on their mind. Did a celebrity come into town or something?"

Sasuke didn't have a clue, "How would I know? I know just as much about this place as you do."

Itachi suddenly realized something, "I don't think I even know the actual name of this town. It was on the map, but I wasn't paying much attention."

"It's called Sekuyai," said the waitress as she came back over and put two cola's on the table, "That should hold you guys over until your shakes get here. My name is Fuka by the way, sorry I forgot to mention that."

Sasuke just had to ask, "If you don't mind me asking miss, what in the hell has everyone so riled up?"

That's when Fuka was sure these guys weren't local, "You haven't heard about it huh?"

"No, would you please tell us what the fuss is about?" Itachi asked, his curiosity peaked.

Fuka didn't see why not, "Sure, I just hope it doesn't ruin your appetite. A few days ago the cops found a body that was torn to shreds, like seriously, it was destroyed. They had to bring a special guy in just to reconstruct his face. The sick thing that did it seemed to be trying to make the murder as painful as possible."

Sasuke could see why everybody was talking so intently now, "Wow, that sounds pretty nasty."

Fuka cringed a little bit, "It was, at least from everything I heard. The thing is, this isn't the first time it happened. It's the sixth time in the past two months."

Itachi was even more interested than before, "So does this look like a cereal killer or something?"

"That's what everybody's thinking," Fuka confirmed, "They're even giving this guy a nickname, the Tsukuyomi. It means something in japanese I think, but I'm not sure. This guy has killed at four different places. It killed one the first two times, the two the next two times. All the cops and stuff say that mean's he's getting more bold. The legends they're saying about this is the craziest part though."

"Legends?" Sasuke parroted.

Fuka almost rolled her eyes as she told them the story, "Some people are saying that it's an ancient reawakened japanese curse, hence the name. Supposedly, an old japanese man's wife was accidently killed by the town's then leader. Since he was the big cheese, he didn't get in any trouble, which made the japanese man go mad. He put a curse on this town, since he was shaman or some shit like that, summoning an ancient demon type of thing to come and take revenge on the town people. This thing apparently has the ability to take the form of whatever the victim fears the most, making the murders even worse."

Itachi saw one major flaw in that, "So where has it been? You said these six kills have only been over the past few months."

Fuka had the same issue, "Supposedly, it was all sealed away by some other old shaman who lived in the town. The stories say that it killed 12 people, including the leader guy, before he took care of it. There was a fire that burned down the records hall like 20 years ago, so no one actually knows if it was true or not. It was too long ago for anyone to remember clearly. They're saying that this creature was freed once again thanks to the shaman dying."

"How do they know he died?" Sasuke said, not buying any of this.

Fuka rolled her eyes, "It's just a crazy theory, that's all. There's just some psycho running killing people and they will eventually figure out who it is. I mean, the first one supposedy happened like 75 years ago, so I really doubt the guy would've lived this long."

Itachi couldn't believe anyone believe this, "This town has a very active imagination."

"It sure does," Fuka agreed with a small smile, "I've gotta get back to work, but either of you boys interested in getting my number?"

Sasuke kind of wished he could take it, because she was red-head with a damn nice body and Itachi never stopped harping on him for being a virgin, "Sorry, but we're just on our way to our new home. We live pretty far away here."

Fuka pouted, "Aw, too bad. I'll be back out with your shakes in just a minute."

Itachi watched her leave and then kept his conversation going with his brother. That had been an interesting tale, but most likely nothing more. How could something that crazy possibly be true?

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><p>Sasuke and Itachi ate their food, which turned out to be some of the best burgers and chili fries they'd ever eaten, and the milkshakes were pretty tasty too. They got outside, it was dark since night had fallen and Itachi tossed Sasuke the keys, "Here you go, I swear, if you get so much as one scratch on this car,"<p>

Sasuke knew that car was like Itachi's baby, so he wasn't gonna mess with it, "I'm driving in a straight line for next like two hours, what's the worse that could happen?"

Itachi didn't wanna answer that purely out of fear he'd jinx himself or something. He just got in the car and waited for his brother to start it. After a few seconds, Itachi looked over to see his brother was turning the key, but nothing was happening, "Hey Itachi, what the fuck's up with your car?"

Itachi was really hoping his brother was screwing with him right now. He didn't want his car to be fucked up and he didn't wanna be stuck out here in the middle of nowhere for god knows how long, "Here, let me try it."

He turned the key, but got the same results, "Believe me Itachi, I wouldn't mess with you at a time like this. I hate the idea of being stuck here as much as you do."

Itachi opened his door and told his brother to pop the trunk, which he quickly did so that Itachi could get a look at car, "What the fuck man, everything in here just looks fine. I keep this thing in tip top shape, what's wrong with it?"

Sasuke didn't know as much about cars as his brother did, "If you can't figure it out then I sure as hell can't. Why don't we just call dad and see if he can send someone to come get us?"

Itachi took out his phone and scowled at it. He had almost no bars, "Aw fuck me. I've got service out here. Maybe if I head into the desert a little bit I'll get some."

"Or you could just go and use the phone in the diner and not go and get yourself killed?" Sasuke suggested a little bit in a sarcastic tone.

Itachi was kind of surprised he overlooked that, "Huh, I guess that would be safer. You stick around in the car, I'll be right back."

Sasuke watched him walk back inside and leaned back in the driver seat. There was literally no reason at all that the car would just stop working like that. Even the radio didn't seem to be working. Must have been something in the battery Sasuke figured, since the electrical system seemed to be what wasn't doing anything.

He looked down at the driver side of car and saw something clinging to the door. It looked like a human hand, but it was all red and gelatinous, with black markings all over it. This thing's flesh was pulsing like a heart as the hand started to make it's way up to the car door. Sasuke went wide eye and threw the door open, running out of it. The hand nearly got a hold of his ankle, but it didn't quite get him. Although Sasuke didn't know what it was, he knew it there was no way it should've been there.

Whatever it was started to crawl out from under the car. It was like some kind of strange humanoid, but it's whole body looked like it's hand had. A black pinwheel was on it's face with the same black markings all over it, "Holy shit! What in god's name is that thing?"

The thing started to walk towards him, grunting, "You...killed...him...you...must...pay..."

Everyone heard Sasuke screaming and came running out of the restaurant. One of the men saw the creature and started to screamed, "It's the Tsukuyomi! Everyone run, get out of here!"

They all started to run away, except for Itachi who of course needed to help his brother. Fuka didn't leave either and she yelled as Itachi ran at what she assumed was the Tsukuyomi, "Itachi, what are you doing? That thing will kill you!"

Itachi started to run towards the creature, which much to his relief had moved it's focus from Sasuke to another person. The man was backing away from it, "Stay back! Stay away from me you freak!"

"Spiders...you fear...the eight-legged beast...you shall die...by your fear!" The Tsukuyomi yelled as it began to change forms. A sickening crunching sound was made as eight legs sprung out of the back of it's body and the rest of it began to morph into something like a ball. It became a massive, hairy legged, eight soulless eyed, spider, and it still seemed to be beating like a heart.

The spider jumped at the man, sinking it's fangs into his neck, squirting blood everywhere. All of the warm red liquid poured out of his body. Needless to say, the man was not going to last long, but it was made even worse by the toxin it was releasing from it's fang, melting the man's face. This creature crawled off of the man and more crunching was heard as the Tsukuyomi reverted back to it's original form and started to soak up some of the blood the man had left behind.

Itachi was over getting his brother, moving as fast as he could towards the diner, "Fuka, let's hold up in the dinner! We'll barricade the doors and wait it out in there!"

Fuka felt it was a good idea as well, so she pushed the doors open and lead them inside. She pulled out one of her employee keys and locked it, but Sasuke and Itachi didn't think that was enough. They grabbed some tables and chairs to block the door, making absolutely sure that thing couldn't get in.

They all backed away, admiring their work. Sasuke panted as he said, "So was that the Tsukuyomi? I thought we all agreed that was a bullshit story."

Fuka didn't know what to make of it, "Is this some kind of nightmare or something? This shit can't be real, right?"

They heard a loud thump on the window to see the Tsukuyomi had thrown a body against it. It had taken the form of a five head snake, each one of the heads hissing at the man. One head bite the man's head while the other four each took a limb. The man screamed in pain as all of the snakes pulled and tour the man apart, throwing his body in five different places.

Itachi looked at the blood on the window and said, "No, I'm pretty fucking sure that's real!"

"It said kept saying 'you killed him.'" Sasuke stammered, "Who's him? I thought this thing was taking revenge for somebody's wife!"

Fuka didn't see how the was relevant, "Who gives a fuck about that! How about how come this thing hasn't even killed ten people when it's something out of a fucking horror movie?"

The Tsukuyomi turned back to normal, then looked around and saw that everyone else had run away and gotten into their cars. Then it looked into the dinner and let out an ear piercing shirke, telling them that it was coming.

Itachi knew it was coming for them, "Really wish our damn car worked right now!"

Fuka had an idea, "There's a freezer in the basement of this place. It's got a steel door and I can turn off cooling units so we don't freeze to death. Seems like that's the safest place to be right now."

Sasuke had to agree, "What the hell are we waiting on? Let's get in the damn basement already!"

All three of them ran to the basement with the creature still screaming behind them. Once they got down there, Fuka quickly turned off the cooling units, the keypad to do that was right next to the freezer, and shut themselves inside. The steel door was heavy as hell, so they doubted the creature would able to get through it.

Once they all caught their breath, they listened closely for any sound the Tsukuyomi might make. They could hear it screaming, "You...all of you...you killed him...you took him from me!"

Itachi just had to wonder, "Who the hell is this guy it keeps talking about? I mean, like my brother said, this thing was supposed to be avenging a wife, not a man."

"All we know about this creature is the legends," Fuka commented, "They must have got some of it wrong. Maybe the wife was the shaman or something?"

Sasuke also went back to Fuka's previous point, "And like Fuka was saying, this thing's been here for like two months now. What the hell has been keeping it from killing everything in sight?"

Itachi realized something, "That thing crawled out from under our car. Do you think it was why it wouldn't start?"

Sasuke didn't know, but he wasn't ruling it out, "It can change into anything it wants, who the hell knows what all it can do."

Their thoughts were interrupted when something smashed into the door hard. All of them started searching frantically for things to bar the door with once again. Fuka pointed to the crates of meat, "Use those, they're the heaviest thing in here! Trust me!"

They started to grab the meat and stacked them up against the door, the Tsukuyomi banging on the door all the while. Itachi felt there was still a chance the door could give way, so he took out his small handgun that his father had given him for protection, "Come you motherfucker, show me what you've got!"

More screaming came from the other end of the door, "Pay...this town...must pay!"

Sasuke yelled back, "We're not even from this town! You've got no reason to kill us!"

The Tsukuyomi screamed, "No...but she is...she must die!"

Itachi stood in front of Fuka, "Sorry, but I can't let you do that! She's done nothing to you!"

Another huge smack hit the door, "This town...they did it...this town destroyed him!"

Fuka had tears in eyes, "Who, who did they destroy? Please, we to know!"

The Tsukuyomi gave it's loudest screech yet, "My soulmate...my lover...my husband!"

This seemed to be confirming Fuka thought, "So your husband wasn't the shaman, you were. And you turned yourself into this to get revenge!"

The slamming stopped, confusing the people on the other side. They waited for a moment, then creature said in a slightly quieter voice, "No...husband was shaman...brought me back...after bad man...killed me...he wanted wife back...me wanted revenge...for killing me...and my child…"

"Child?" Itachi muttered.

Sasuke understood, "You were gonna have a baby."

There was a silence for a while, no one said a word. Itachi just held gun towards the door to try and keep his brother and friend safe. They all nearly jumped out of their door suddenly exploded open, the meat creates fell all around them.

The Tsukuyomi screeched at them and Itachi started to pull the trigger. Before he could, the Tsukuyomi stretched out it's arm longer than any human could and smacked the gun out of Itachi's hand. Itachi saw a blur of red as the creature's hand latched on to his face and his world faded away. He was not dead, merely beginning to feel as though he was in a dream. his eyes turned entirely black as Sasuke tried to free him.

Sasuke was yanking on the Tsukuyomi's arm, "Hey you crazy bitch, let him go!"

The creature merely smacked him away, sending him flying into the wall. Fuka didn't think it was a good idea to try that after what happened to Sasuke. Itachi wasn't aware of any of this, he was in a world all his own.

* * *

><p><em>Images, sort of like an old film, ran though Itachi's mind as Tsukuyomi connected her consciousness with his. He saw a man and a woman standing in the middle of a circle of men. The men seemed menacing, like they wanted something from the man in the middle. The man had traditional clothing, he almost looked tribal. One of the men in the circle, the one who appeared to be the leader of the group, came down to the woman and grabbed her by her hair. The man with the woman got angry and chased after the leader, who turned around and smacked the man in the traditional clothing in the face. <em>

_Then the leader threw the woman on the ground and pulled out a large knife, rubbing it on the woman's slightly extend stomach. She began to cry, as if she was begging him to touch her any place but there. The leader gave a dark smile, turned to man in the center circle, and ran knife against his own throat as if to say, 'I will kill you if you don't do what I want.'_

_The leader turned and raised the knife above his head, the woman screaming all the while, begging him to stop. As the knife closed in on the woman's stomach, the man in traditional clothing started to scream. It was in vain though, as the knife cut through the woman's skin like butter, again and again and again. In total, she was stabbed just under a tozen times._

_The woman laided there, sobbing and holding her stomach, as the leader man stood up and motioned for his men to follow him. Crawling on his belly, the other man was able to crawl to the woman's side. She kept mouthing something that looked like, 'Our baby, our baby', despite the fact that she was clearly dying._

_As if he couldn't bare to hear the woman's words, the man put a finger to the woman's mouth, sushing her. He raised his hand just above her stomach and it started to glow. The blood that been pooling around her began to cover her body, turning her skin red. Black markings started to cover her body and the man looked like he hated himself for what he was doing. When the process was finished, the woman had become the Tsukuyomi and the man was holding her close, just happy she was alive._

_The Tsukuyomi wasn't as happy though. It bolted upright and got on all fours, chasing after the men who had killed her child like an animal. The man was screaming after her to stop, but it was too late. This newly born creature was already gone._

_That scene began to fade and another scene took it's place. The woman/Tsukuyomi was surrounded by dead bodies, all of them mutilated in various ways. After a long screech, the Tsukuyomi clasped, seeming very tired. Using its newfound powers must have wiped it out. It began to soak up the blood left behind, gaining strength from it. _

_The man from before suddenly burst on the scene, running to his former wife. She still had enough for her sense to know who he was and was very pleased to see him. However, the man did not seem as pleased. He scolded the monster, seeming very upset with it's actions. _

_The monster screeched back, seeming unhappy with it's mate's response. They began to argue with one another, although the man could barely understand what the Tsukuyomi was saying. Finally, the man took out a knife and made a small cut on his forehead, drawing blood from it. It seemed as though he was trying to prove a point of some kind, but it was hard to tell what. _

_Whatever the man had said, the creature seemed satisfied by. The two of them left holding hand, a rather disturbing sight when one of them was a pulsing monsterosity. They walked as the scene faded, once again changing into something new._

_It appeared to be the same man as before, but he was much older. He looked almost a hundred to be honest. The same creature was sitting next to him, looking almost like it was sad. She was holding the man's hand, his breaths were becoming shorter and shorter. She was watching her mate die._

_Much to the Tsukuyomi's dismay, the man's labored breathing finally stood. It shook him a couple of times, as if she didn't believe, then hung her head. Shaking, the creature let loose one long shriek, running off into city as everything started to fade back into reality._

* * *

><p>Itachi snapped back into the real world as the Tsukuyomi removed it's hand. Sasuke ran up to him while Fuka seemed to be planning something, "Itachi, are you okay?"<p>

Itachi didn't responded to him, he just looked at what was once a woman, "So that's the real story. She was indeed the shaman's wife, and she was pregnant. I'm not sure who, but some men wanted her husband to use his powers for something, but I couldn't tell what. They killed your baby and tried to kill you to get to him, but it backfired, didn't it?"

The creature nodded, "They payed...oh how they payed!"

Itachi then continued, "You lost the baby, but your husband used his powers to save you by turning you into something that wasn't human. As soon as you could, you used your new powers to kill those men, but it came at a cost. You're powers required blood to be used, or you would grow weak. When your husband saw this, he offered to use his blood to feed you and you two went on like that for years."

A sadness came over the creature, "Not anymore...husband gone…"

Itachi already knew that, "You got angry again when he died, but you didn't have enough blood to go full on against the town. They'd kill you easily. You've been killing helpless people to get strong enough to destroy this town because you blame them for what happened to your husband."

Anger became the Tsukuyomi's mood once again, "Town leader killed husband...town horrible!"

Itachi stood up and looked at her calmly, "What happened to you was terrible, but no one who did it is still alive. You saw to that. You don't get to kill an entire town because of one groups mistakes. Do you think this is what your husband would've wanted?"

"Husband gone...town will pay...nothing you can say to change mind!" The creature shrieked once again.

Itachi picked up his gun, "I had a feeling you'd say that. It appears hate has warped your mind too much to be repaired. Now, you must die."

The creature gave out something that seemed like a laugh and prepared to kill Itachi. However, Fuka had another plan. She'd found a boxcutter and had taken the blade all the way out. Fuka buried it into the Tsukuyomi's head before it could attack Itachi. It shirked as Itachi raised up his gun and unloaded his clip into the creatures vital organs.

It collapsed onto the the ground, thrashing and grunting, life slowly leaving it's body. Itachi watched as the creature seemed to dissolve into nothingness. Sasuke was in awe, "That's it, just blades and bullets can kill it?"

Itachi figured they would, "No one's ever tried to kill it before Sasuke. They've been too afraid and just tried to run. In it's human form, I knew it would be vulnerable. It just used up to much blood, you know?"

Fuka looked at the poor thing and shook her head, "I almost feel sorry for it...almost. Let's get the fuck out of here!"

All of them started to leave, listening to Tsukuyomi's dying screams. Sasuke looked back just in time to see it's last stitch attempt to kill them by ripping the blade out of it's head and threw it at them. It was flying at Fuka, which Sasuke wouldn't stand for, "Fuka, watch out!"

He pushed her out of the way, taking the blade in his shoulder. Fuka made sure Sasuke was okay while Itachi turned to see the Tsukuyomi's last moments. It melted into a puddle of blood, and the blood began to evaporate strangely enough, "It's going to be like she was never even here…"

Fuka looked at Sasuke's shoulder and said, "Who gives a fuck? Just let the cops think it was the psycho killer again or something! I don't really care!"

Sasuke was in major agreement, "Somethings are better left unknown. I don't think the world ever needs to find out about this."

Fuka then did her best to get the blade out and wrap up Sasuke's arm, "It's not a deep wound, I can just stitch you up back at my place...I'm just waitressing to get through college...I'm hoping to be a nurse..."

They all started to walk out of the basement and Itachi asked, "How old are you anyways?"

Fuka smiled and said, "Nineteen. I've got an apartment you guys can rest at if you've got a car to drive me home in. Something tells me my ride left before I could get in."

Sasuke knew that was fair, "Sure, now that that thing's dead are car should be running again. Itachi, you're driving, because I'm pretty fucked up right now."

Itachi didn't know what else to do, so he just laughed at the joke. This day would haunt him forever, but at least he could remember it ended in a laugh.

**The Next Day**

Itachi and Sasuke had spent the night at Fuka's house, their car worked just fine now, and then left for their new home in the morning. What else was there for them to do, since they sure as hell weren't telling anybody about all this?

Sasuke was playing "_Feels Like the First Time" _by Foreigner on the radio, just looking out the window with a dumb smile on his face, "So how do we explain my shoulder to dad?"

Itachi watched the road carefully and answered the question easily since he'd thought all of this through last night, "Is was an accident that happened when we changed a flat tire we got last night. I was using my knife to dislodge something that had gotten stuck and accidently stabbed you because you were a little too close. We went to the hospital which was why we were almost a day late."

Sasuke liked the sound of that, "So we were both idiots? I can live with that."

"You were pretty heroic last night. I mean you save Fuka's life," Itachi praised, "Did she thank you for that."

Sasuke's smile got bigger, "You could say that, yeah...the best thank you I ever got."

Itachi was pretty sure he'd figured out why Sasuke had been smiling so much, "Holy shit! Did you finally get laid last night?"

Sasuke didn't say anything. Just gave a shiteating grin and turned up the radio, "God I love this song."

Itachi put his hand on his brother's shoulder, "Okay, you're fucking tell me about this! Don't leave out anything. It's not everyday your little brother loses his virginity to a girl that hot!"

"Well she had laid me on her bed and patched up my shoulder. She came in the room in these lace red bra and panties and she looked fucking hot," Sasuke started to say with pride.

The two brothers enjoyed the rest of their ride, Itachi praising his little brothers big night most of the way there. It wouldn't be easy, but they were going to leave what happened to them behind them. Over time it would become nothing but a dream, and the only Sasuke would remember would be Fuka and the fun the two of them ended up having.


	3. Feeling Kind of Buggy

Welcome back my terrifying friends, to Naruto: The Horror Chronicles! This one will be about everyone's favorite bug fan, Shino, as he tries to navigate the world of high school while hiding his little hobby. Bugs are considered to be some of the creepiest things known to man, and I'm going to do my best to use that to make this chapter truly disturbing! You should know going in, this is gonna be a short chapter since I don't really have much plot to use this time. That being said, let's the terror and fright begin!

* * *

><p><em>No insect likes humans and if you think you can see why, the only reason I tolerate you is because you seem less human to me than most of them.<em>

_Don Marquis_

_There was a dark presence running through the forest of Konoha, frightening every living thing in a few feet of it. It wasn't like anything anyone had seen before. A strange aura seemed to surround it, something that just didn't make it seem natural. It almost looked like a man, but then again it didn't. The thing's skin had small, dark patches on parts of it and the patches seemed to be moving as well._

_It clearly seemed to be running from something, you could hear screams behind it, "Get over here you freak! You're ruining everything! What's the matter bugboy? Don't you wanna play?"_

_The thing just kept running and running, not daring to look back. Eventually, it collapsed on the ground, unable to make it's legs move anymore. It must have ran for miles nonstop._

_When it looked down you could see small beetles crawling on it's skin. The thing became enraged, and started smacking the beetles off, "You damn little monsters! You fucking bastards! I took care of you and you ruined my life! This is all your fault!"_

_It just kept smacking itself over and over. All it wanted was for this to be over...all he wanted was his life back...it just wanted to go back to the way things were before._

* * *

><p>Shino was never someone that had been what you'd call 'Normal.' He was a short boy, no older than 16, who had brown hair and always wore baggy clothes with dark sunglasses. Even on the hottest days of the year, Shino always wore heavy baggy clothes. Not many people knew that he wore clothes to hide all of the marks on his arm that he got thanks to his parents.<p>

Now don't be mistaken, his parents did not beat him and loved him very dearly. The marks were bug bites that he got from handling them. His parents bred specific types of insects to milk venom from them for medical purposes. Shino had been taught to handle them since he was young, but that didn't mean he didn't get bitten from time to time. People would think he was weirder than they already did if they saw him covered in bug bites.

Not many people in his school even knew who Shino was. They mostly just ignored him as he almost never talked. Of course, that lead most people there was something wrong with him. He had no friends, and that was for the best the way he saw it. No one knew who he really was and that way no one could really hurt him. He wanted to get married one day, but he'd have to be out of high school before that happened. Maybe he'd get lucky and find a girl who could get past the bug thing like his father did, but he'd have to wait and see.

He was in his room right now, monitoring the bugs he kept in there before he had to go off to school. One of his bettles was crawling up his finger as he looked at it fondly, "You really are such wise little creatures. Not like us humans. They don't worry about things like looks or personality, all you do is work together. We could learn a lot from you guys."

Shino's mother, Baguha, knocked on his door and said, "Shino, you're gonna be late for school if you don't hurry up!"

Shino sighed and put the beetle back, "Alright mom, I'll be out in a minute."

He grabbed his bag and walked out the door. Shino grabbed a little food before he left and went out to his car. It was a pretty nice car, thanks to how much money his parents made. Bugs were a very lucrative business.

His father was getting into his car as well and said before his son left, "Have a nice day Shino. Be sure to do well in school."

Shino was appreciative, as that was the most amount of emotion Shiba, Shino's father, ever really showed. Even then, it was mostly just a concern for Shino's education, "Of course Dad, I'll give my best effort as always."

With that he go in his car and drove off, beginning another day of the same abysmal routine. Go to school, pretend he didn't hate half of the people there, get good grades, go home, breed bugs, go to sleep. Add eating in there and you had all that Shino ever did.

He pulled into the school parking lot and got out of his car. Of course, the very first person he ran into was the school's biggest asshole, Jugo, "Well hey there Mr. Silent. If you want me to smack you upside the head, don't say anything."

Shino just sighed and stayed silent. He knew that even if he did say anything, Jugo would still smack him. Jugo's hand soon met the back of his head, "Yeah, that's what I thought. See you in class asshole."

Most people just left Shino alone, but Jugo knew that he could fuck with Shino all he wanted and he'd never do anything about it. Jugo was a dick, that was for sure. Shino just felt it was more trouble than it was worth to try and stop him.

Shino spent the next five hours doing his typical school work and dreading the final hour of the day...chemistry. That was the only class he had with Jugo, and it was by far the worst part of his day. Jugo had access to chemicals there, and he made sure to use them on Shino. Of course it didn't help his desk was right behind Shino's. It was the only class Shino had trouble focusing in and it was no mystery why.

He got into class and found Jugo was already there waiting for him. Jugo had something in his hand, but Shino couldn't' see what it was, "Hey Mr. Silent, come and take your seat. It's alright, I promise not to bite."

Shino did his best to ignore the taunt and sat down at his desk. He'd done well with everything before this, now he just had to get through one more hour. That much, Shino was sure he could handle.

The teacher, Iruka, got up and began to give the class a lecture on chemistry that most people found very boring. It was about significant figures and and margin of error, something Shino felt would have been more at home in a math class. He didn't even notice Jugo holding a beaker with something inside of it that he'd stolen from Iruka's chemical bank.

Jugo suddenly began to pour the mixture down Shino's back and you could see smoke begins to rise from it. Iruka saw what was going on from the corner of his eye and knew what Jugo was using. It was something that Iruka used to dissolve pieces of clothes for a lab they did later on in the year.

The mixture began to dissolve Shino's shirt as Iruka screamed at Jugo, "What the hell are you doing?"

Shino screamed a little bit, as he could feel whatever the chemical was sizzling through his clothes and burning his back slightly. His shirt became nothing but scraps as his skin and face were revealed to the entire class. The girls had to admit, he had a very pleasant face to look at. However, they couldn't help but stare at the red marks that covered his arms and part of his chest.

Iruka was incredibly startled. He was a nervous man, so it was hard for him to ask "Shino...um….what are um….those marks…"

Shino cut him off and let most of his classmates hear his voice for the first time, "They're bug bites. My parents breed bugs for medical purposes and I help them very often. I wear the shirts so that I don't disturb people. It appears that ship has now sailed..."

Jugo heard that and started to laugh his ass off, "Oh my gosh, look at him! He's a fucking freak! Haha, no wonder he's so quiet all the time, he doesn't have the strenght to talk! Those bugs are sucking all of his blood out of him, haha!"

Iruka was furious. He hated the way Shino was treated by the other students, "I wouldn't be laughing if I were you Jugo. You're going down to the office and you're going to tell them what you did. I will personally do everything in my power to see to it that you're expelled! Now get out!"

Jugo scowled as he left the room, "Come on, if anything I did all of us a favor. Just imagine all of the germs that must be in bugboy over there!"

Once Jugo left the room was dead silent. No one had any idea what to say. Shino just looked around and just grabbed his things, "I've already got the homework...I think I'll just head home if that's alright."

Iruka felt awful, "Shino, you don't need to leave. That was just Jugo being a jerk. I'm sure that no one here wants you to,"

Shino was already going, "I've embarrassed myself enough for one day. Have a pleasant day everyone."

Shino had no idea what happened after that. He assumed that people spent the rest of the day talking about him and his bug filled habits. All he could do at this point was hope that he was wrong…

* * *

><p>Shino went home and immediately shut himself in his room. He got lucky, since neither of his parents had gotten home yet he didn't have to explain the whole no shirt thing to them. Once he got his homework done, he just sat and began to examine his bugs. There wasn't much else he felt like doing really.<p>

Eventually there was a knock at Shino's door and his mother called to him, "Shino?...Iruka called and told me what happened...sweetie, do you wanna talk about it?"

Shino was afraid that was what she'd want, "There's nothing to talk about mother, I'm just fine. One idiot at the school isn't enough to ruin my day."

Anyone could tell that was a lie, "Please Shino? I promise you it's okay. Just let me come in and talk to you. You'll feel better if you do."

Shino just watched another small bug crawl across his finger, "Mother, will you please just leave me be? I promise you, there's nothing wrong with me."

Shiba knocked on the door, "Shino, it's your dad."

Shino just had to roll his eyes, "Yes, I recognize my father's voice."

Shiba could see this wasn't going to be easy, "I'm sorry Shino, but as your father I'm telling you to open this door."

Shino put the bug back in it's case and walked over to the door. He knew better than to try and disobey his father, so he opened it right away, "Yes?"

Shiba didn't blame his son for being agitated right now. It was a natural reaction after what happened to him, "Your mother told me what happened to you today. Son, I'm so sorry about all of this. If I'd known that handling the insects would have this kind of effect on you,"

Shino already stopped him, "No, don't you dare blame this on them!I love working with the insects! It's the people that I can't stand!"

Shiba cringed at his son's cynicism, "Look, I know that this Jugo kid was an asshole, but you can't judge all people based on him. He's just one fool who feels the need to make others look like an idiot so that he can feel better about himself."

Shino was about to start yelling, but then he sighed, "I know that dad...it's just been a very eventful day and I'm very tired, that's all."

Shiba could understand that, "Just get so rest son. I think a lot of people are going to surprise you tomorrow."

Shino was doubtful, but thanked his father and hugged his parents goodnight, just the same. Maybe his father was right and everything would be fine tomorrow. He went to bed with that thought in his mind. There was hope in his mind that things could still go well for him.

* * *

><p>The sun rose at the same time the next day and Shino woke up feeling a little bit better. He went through his usual routine, shower and eating breakfast, then tending to his little colony of bugs.<p>

Something about them seemed very different today. They were scurrying faster than usual and seemed very lively in general. Shino picked one of them up examined it. This one seemed to be female and was a little bigger than usual. She shocked Shino when she crawled down his hand and bit him. He almost smacked the bug, but stopped himself and set her back down. None of his bugs had ever done that before, so he was very surprised at this one's actions. Still, he had some faith that this could still be a good day. Once the bugs were all settled in, Shino finished getting ready for school. His father gave him one last goodbye and told Shino to have a good day. For once, Shino felt like that just might be a possibility.

* * *

><p>As soon as Shino got to school, he noticed something was different. Jugo wasn't there and Shino couldn't see his car either. He must have gotten suspended for the little stunt he'd pulled the day before. A few days without Jugo sounded pretty damn nice to Shino.<p>

He walked into school and prepared himself for whatever people may insult him. People were clearly looking at him more than usual, but none of them said anything. Shino didn't know if that was good or bad, so he was just walked off and went to class. There was no way to tell how things would really go until the last hour of the day, with of the people who'd actually seen his bites.

For the most of his day, nothing eventful really happened. No one was even the slightest bit mean to him. In fact, a lot of people actually smiled and said hello to him. It was kind of weird, but Shino wasn't going to complain.

Then he got to the last hour of the day, and that's when he was in for the biggest shock. When he sat down at his usual desk. Two of the school's prettiest girls, the skinny blonde Shuri and the more curvy redhead Nami, sat down on next to him. They both both smiled and asked, "Hey Shino, what's up?"

To say Shino was confused would be an understatement, "Um, hi girls...nothing's really up. Not to be rude, but why are you sitting next to me?"

The girls both giggled and Nami asked, "What, we can't be friendly?"

Shino raised an eyebrow, "Are you guys planning to pull a prank on me or something?"

Shuri gasped at the idea, "Oh man no! We just felt really bad about what happened to you."

Nami quickly agreed, "Jugo was a dick to you yesterday. We decided that we should try and make up for ignoring you all these years."

Shino nervously asked, "The whole bug thing doesn't bother you?"

They didn't think it was a big deal, "It's your parents job, you're just helping with it and stuff. As long as you don't try and bring them to school, we really don't care. We just wanna get to know you."

Shino was a little touched by their actions, "Um, thank you. That means a lot to me."

The girls each gave him a kiss on the cheek and said, "No problem, we're glad to do it."

That was how the rest of the hour went for him. Instead of the last hour of the day being the worst, it turned out to be the best. Just when Shino thought that it couldn't get any better, Iruka came up to him and whispered, "Hey Shino, I just wanted to let you know that Jugo's not going to be coming back to school."

Shino just stared for a moment and then asked, "What are you talking about?"

Iruka couldn't tell if Shino was happy or sad, "You don't get to pour chemicals on someone and stay in school. The principal expelled Jugo, so he's not coming back. You don't have to worry about him anymore."

Shino almost couldn't believe it. His tormentor was finally gone and people weren't ignoring him anymore. It was like some kind of strange dream. A strange kind of dream that was suddenly interrupted by a searing pain in his hand. He tried to make himself seem fine, but as soon as Iruka was gone he looked down at his hand to see some kind of strange black spot moving around under his skin.

Upon closer examination, Shino found that it was something absolutely horrifying. There were small baby beetles moving around under his skin, at least 10 of them. Even more horrifying, it looked like there were more eggs under his skin, meaning there was more beetles yet to come. Shino thought back to that bug bite, realizing that female had laid her eggs inside of his hand.

Shino felt sick, he honestly wanted to throw up. Not just from the pain of having these beetles moving around under his skin, but from the pure horror of what was happening to him. If his classmates saw him like this, he'd never be able to get over it. Bites were one thing, but he had actual bugs living inside of him! He was a fucking human hive!

Much to Shino's joy, the bell rang signaling that school was over. He sprinted out of the classroom, much to Nami's confusion, "Shino, where are you going?"

Shuri suggested, "Don't worry, he's probably just used to getting out of here quickly so that he could get away from Jugo.

Shuri just kind of shrugged, "Huh, I guess that could be it. We'll ask him tomorrow."

* * *

><p>Shino got to his car and drove home as fast as he could. If he could just get the proper chemicals, Shino would be able to kill these bugs no problem. After everything he'd done for them, the little bastards betrayed him. Bugs weren't supposed to lay eggs in human, so there must have been something wrong with this colony. He had to kill the whole hive and never breed with those type of beetles ever again. Clearly there was something wrong with them.<p>

When he pulled into the driveway, his parents weren't home yet. He thanked god for that, as he didn't wanna deal with even trying to explain all of this to them. Shino sprinted right inside and went right to where they stored all of the chemicals for handling the bugs.

He started to look through all of them, ripping them out one at a time trying to find what he needed. There was only one chemical that would kill the bugs without making him sick. Shino could read the name, but there was no way he could ever pronounce it. However, said chemical was nowhere to be found. They must have been all out.

Shino cursed and threw the other bottles aside as he looked down at his skin to see at least 20 more beetles had hatched. He could feel them crawling all over his skin, or under his skin more accurately. His stomach just kept sinking and sinking, making him feel like some kind of damn monster. Some kind of freaky, fucked up, bug infested monster.

There was a knock at the door, which startled Shino quite a bit. His parents both had keys, so he knew it wasn't them. It had be something else. He ran up to the door and yelled, "Who is it?"

Someone yelled back on the other side, "Open the damn door!"

Shino recognized the voice instantly, "Go the hell away Jugo! I don't have time to deal with your shit right now!"

Jugo wasn't figuring he'd talk that much, "Well aren't you chatting today! Just shut up and open that door you son of a bitch!"

Shino yelled back even louder, "If you think I'm gonna let you in you're insane Jugo. Just go home already!"

Jugo had no plans of going anywhere, "Thanks to you I got expelled! My parents are ripping me a new one for pete's sake!"

Shino couldn't give a damn about his self caused problems, "Dammit Jugo, just go home!"

That's when Jugo kicked open the door, the kid was incredibly strong, "I'm not gonna sit here and wait...What the fuck is wrong with you!"

Shino didn't have to ask what he was talking about. He had about 40 or 50 bugs in his skin now, "You really are an asshole, you know that?"

Jugo cracked a deviously devious smile, "Well look at you bugboy. Actually, how about I have the whole damn town look at you? I'd bet they'd love to see you like this."

Shino's blood ran cold. He knew Jugo meant what he said, which was gonna be one hell of a problem for him. The poor boy turned around and ran out the back door, sprinting into the woods behind his house. All he could think to do right now was run, and run like hell. Everything seemed to be going to shit right now, and all Shino wanted was to get away.

Jugo ran in after him, taunting him as he moved, "Hey now bugboy, where are you going? I just wanna play, that's all! HAHAHA!"

* * *

><p>That was how Shino found himself lying on the ground, slapping himself for dear life. Jugo was undoubtedly close behind him, just waiting for some kind of chance to drag Shino out into the open and show him off. It was like waiting for end of his life, as he knew that once people saw him like this, they'd never treat him the same.<p>

Shino could hear Jugo getting closer as the crunching leafs sound got louder. He didn't know what to do...he didn't know what he could to be honest. Should he try and defend himself? Lord knows that Jugo wasn't gonna make it easy on him, so he very well might have to defend himself.

He felt around and finally got a nice hard rock in his hand. Shino heard Jugo coming, getting closer and closer by the second. Finally the sound of breaking twigs became so loud that Shino had to stand up with the rock in his hand.

He swung it without even thinking, "Just leave me alone!"

Maybe it was blind luck or maybe Shino just knew what he was doing, but the rock managed to his Jugo square in the head. The massive kid fell to the ground with a nice big mark on his head.

Jugo felt his head and tired to stand up, but he was very shaky, "Why you little...you're gonna pay for that."

Shino was breathing harder than ever. He didn't know what do, everything was a blur, and it was all going by so fast! It was like something out of a terrible nightmare. There was some kind of extreme pain that came all over his body and he dropped to the ground on his hands and knees, "AAAAAAHHHHH!"

Jugo just kept laughing, "Scream all you want you little bitch! Whatever you're feeling now, I'm gonna make it ten times worse in just a minute!"

Shino screamed out again, but this time something was different. There was a buzzing noise that came along with his screaming. Hundreds of beetles flew out of his mouth and right at Jugo. Jugo looked in horror at what was coming for him and stepped backwards, "What the fuck is happening? What's going on? Stay away from me! Stay away! AAAAHHHH!"

Shino looked at his skin to see all of the beetles were gone now. All of them had left his body to defend him against his enemy. They were biting Jugo all over, but all Shino could ask was, "Just how many of those things were inside of me?"

A beetle flew over to him and rested on Shino's forehead. It did not bite him, merely crawled around on his scalp. Shino fell to his side and began to weep, "Thank you...thank you...thank you…"

His beetles defend him in the end. Maybe that's what they'd intended to do all along. Shino didn't care right now. All he could do was be grateful. Jugo was screaming louder and louder, and it seemed safe to assume he'd be dead soon. That wasn't what mattered though, he was getting what he deserved. The boy was a monster who had to destroy the lives of others to himself feel like he was worth something, and that was no way to live.

When the time came, Shino wouldn't be telling anyone the truth. No one would believe him if he did. He'd just say that Jugo was chasing after him for getting him expelled and he passed out while he was running. Shino would say that he had no clue what happened after he'd passed out. Of course he wasn't just lying for their sake, he was lying for his too. There was no way he'd ever forget this day, but he was damn sure gonna try...


	4. A Demon's Demons

Hello my horror loving friends, and welcome to the next chapter of Naruto: The Horror Chronicles. This next story will follow the tale of Zabuza Momochi, an ex-assassin who's haunted by horrible nightmares from his past and is convinced he's being followed by a dark group of demons that are posing as human's, who are out to kill. The only problem is...no one believes him, even his own psychiatrist. Before long, even he starts to wonder if he's just going mad, and so he begins to travel back to the places in his nightmares to attempt to figure out what's going 'll surely be one of my longest chapters, I can tell you that now. I would like to give a huge thanks to my close friend stealth8604, who gave me this amazing idea. He's a great guy, a talented writer, and has been a major help to me in writing my fanfics. When I said he was an amazing writing, I meant. He's got fanfic of his own he's working on, so be sure to keep an eye out for them. They're sure to be great. Also, thanks to my friend Vegeta The Saiyajin Prince for editing this one for me, I owe you one being said, let us start the tale.

* * *

><p><em>"Monsters are real, ghosts are real too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win."<em>

_Stephen King_

_One the clearest ways you'll ever see a human being is through the scope of a sniper rifle. There's nothing to pull your focus away from them, nothing that can make them seem different. The only thing you can see is a person about to die. Their whole life has been hurtling towards one moment in which it will end, and yet they can't even see what's going to kill them. Life is ended by the single pull of a trigger, everything is summed up in just a one moment._

_In a small city, just on the outskirts of Konoha, a man was lying on his stomach on top of a four story snow covered building with his eye looking down the scope of the rifle he was holding. He had thin body armor on and was wearing a thin cloth mask to cover his face. His head was covered with brown hair and his at least 6 feet tall. The man was zero in on someone hiding in the shadows. Said person was hiding in an alley and wearing a mask that looked like it was from ancient japan, so you couldn't see their face. The person's hair was long and unkempt, they were very thin and dirty as well._

_The man on the roof didn't know why the one in the mask needed to be killed or why there was even a mask on him at all, but he didn't really care. All he needed to do was shoot and he'd get his money._

_One shot was fired, a small sound emanating from the silencer. The mask wearer's head snapped back and blood began to pour out of the bullet hole and onto the fresh snow. A small smile appeared under the face of the masked shooter as he started to put his rifle away, feeling his job was done. However, the masked one in the ally didn't die. Instead they stood up and pointed at the gunman with a bloody finger._

_The man with the gun started at finger, terrified. He turned around to try and leave, but was met with the bloody mask of the person he'd just shot. How the person was still alive or how they'd gotten up here so fast, the shooter did not know. All he did was scream._

* * *

><p>That's when Zabuza's woke up from his nightmare. He was breathing hard and sweating out of fear. It was one of the same nightmares he'd been having for the past month. They never changed, but somehow they still seemed to be getting worse. Right now, they were the worst part of his 45 years on earth.<p>

Zabuza Momochi had been an assassin for the military in the beginning of his career as a hit man. They paid pretty well, but they very rarely had anyone for him to kill. It wasn't like Zabuza would just sit around for weeks at a time doing nothing, so he became a freelance assassin. He knew this wasn't exactly the honorable thing to do, but Zabuza didn't really care. The way he saw it, you either a shmuck who could spent his days trying to make ends meet with some shitty good for nothing life, or you could go out and kick life in the teeth, taking whatever you want. As a man who didn't settle, Zabuza chose to be the latter.

He'd earned himself the nickname, 'The Demon Assassin' because of how ruthless he could be. Zabuza would move heaven and earth to get his man, if he was the one after you, you were dead. However, that was over 15 years ago. He wasn't the man he once was. Gone were the days where he could just kill without remorse. Now he remembered every person he'd killed, and they'd all come back to haunt him.

Every night, when he went to sleep, Zabuza would have a nightmare of someone he'd killed in the past. They would start out showing exactly what he'd done when he'd killed them, but they never ended with what actually happened. Everytime, the person would survive something impossible and come after Zabuza. Needless to say, Zabuza didn't get much sleep these days.

He got out of his bed and looked at his reflection in the mirror. His eyes had bags running down them and they were bloodshot. Overgrown was the only word you could use to describe his hair and he looked almost pale. The man from fifteen years ago who looked like the picture of health was gone, and this sad sack took his place. Granted, he was still in much better shape than the average man his age, but it was nothing compared to what he'd been. Before he wore his old mask to scare people. Now he put it on every morning so that he didn't have to see his own face.

Grabbing the pills from the sink, Zabuza took three of them and washed them down with a nice swig of whiskey for a bottle that was on the floor. It woke him better than coffee ever had. He looked back and his reflection and mumbled in his gruff voice, "What a worthless piece of shit you are. To think, people used to call you a demon."

With that, he started to walk down stairs, thinking back to the dream he'd been having before. There were three nightmares that he had consistently. One about a stripper he'd killed in Konoha, one about a business man he'd killed in a town called Mizu, and one about the kid in the mask. The kind in the mask was always the worst, although Zabuza didn't know why. That one just always seemed to haunt him the most.

When he got down stairs, he went straight to his fridge to get a bite to eat. His fridge was almost completely empty, but he still had a some leftover pizza from the night before. He took out the box and just ate it cold, not bothering to pop it in the microwave. Zabuza didn't kill for cash any more, so he didn't get much cash. He'd paid off the two story house back when he was making money hand over fist, but he still had to pay for the utilities, food, and taxes. That was easy enough though, doing odd job could cover his cost living, even if just barely.

Once he'd eaten what was left of the pizza and took another swig of whisky from the bottle he kept in the cupboard, Zabuza got ready for his big meeting today. Well, it was kind of a meeting. He had an appointment with his psychiatrist. Admittedly, in his less great financial situation, he really didn't have have the money for a psychiatrist. Zabuza needed one though, as it seemed to be the only thing that was helping with the nightmares.

Zabuza's psychiatrist was a man by the name of Inoichi Yamanaka. He was one of the most brilliant psychiatrists in the world and easily the best one in Konoha...and Zabuza hated him. As much as he needed the man, going to see him was like pulling teeth. It hurt his head and his heart to remember the things Inoichi forced him to, but he just couldn't take the nightmares.

If he couldn't deal with the nightmares, he had to see Inoichi, which is just what he was going to do right now. He got on some decent clothes, holstered his gun to his hip, and left for the psychiatrist's office. Zabuza was hoping this would be his last visit.

* * *

><p>Zabuza walked down the streets of Konoha with a nervous look on his face, although you couldn't see it under his cloth mask. He'd been getting this feeling every time he left the house, this feeling that someone was following him. Everytime he turned around, he could've swore that he would see the same people pretending not to look at him. They were the same few people every time, and Zabuza could've swore he recognized them. However, he couldn't place the faces. There had one or two times he'd managed to look into their eyes, but that actually made things worse. All that he saw in their eye sockets were two black holes that seemed to pierce his soul. In the end he just convinced himself that he was just seeing things, or at least he'd been trying to.<p>

That feeling was still there, he could feel it even now as he walked to his appointment. He kept looking behind him, carefully looking at who was and wasn't there when he made his turns. There was almost never the same the people there when he looked, expect for one. It was someone whose face Zabuza couldn't see, because it was covered by a hood. Zabuza started to make more twists and turn, going the completely wrong way. Even when he headed in circles, the person still followed him. After a while, Zabuza carefully started to slow down little by little.

He was going to be late for his meeting, but he didn't care. Once the man was within Zabuza's reach, he grabbed the person with the hood and pulled them into a nearby ally. Pulling out his magnum, Zabuza put it to the person's throat, although he still couldn't quite see the face, "Okay, who in the fuck are you? For the past ten blocks you've been following me, and I know it's not just a coincidence! I've been on the road to fucking nowhere!"

The person replied in a small voice, "Please sir, I don't what you're talking about."

Zabuza cocked the gun, "Oh don't bullshit me! I know that you're following me. You and bunch of other freaks! I don't know what you want, but I'm at least gonna know who you are!"

He grabbed the hood and yanked it off, finally revealing the man's face...or not. Zabuza was shocked to see he was standing face to face with the same masked kid he'd shot years ago. There was a bullet hole in mask, right where Zabuza had shot him, "You? That's impossible, I killed you! I watched you bleed out for fucks sake!"

"Yes, you did shoot me," came a voice from the mask that if, Zabuza had to guess, seemed to belong to male, "You shot me right between the eyes like I was nothing. Never did you bother to ask who you were shooting or way. Not even so much as a look in the eye."

Zabuza tried to look into this kid's eyes, but all he found was black, soulless casums, "What the hell are you? Where are your eyes?"

The kid laughed, "We don't have eyes. You didn't look in our eyes before, so you aren't going to get the privilege of looking in them now."

Zabuza could feel that snow had begun to fall on his shoulders. This wasn't possible, it was the middle of summer! What was going on here? "Who's we? What do you people want with me?"

Another laugh came from the boy, "We want you to know what you've done Mr. Momochi. We want you to pay for your sins?"

Zabuza was trembling with fear. He didn't need to ask what sins he needed to pay for, he already knew, "Please, just tell me who you are!"

"Well that's quite simple Zabuza," The boy replied, "We're a demon's demons."

With those words the boy grabbed Zabuza's hand, causing the man to pull his trigger. Once the shot went off, the boy was gone, along with the snow that had been falling before. Zabuza looked around, trying to make sense out of what the hell just happened. He needed to see Inoichi now more than ever.

* * *

><p>There were several things about going to see Inoichi that Zabuza hated. One was the way the analyzed everything he said. Another was the man's amaze ability to say just the right thing to piss him off. However, the worst part had to be being forced to lay down on the worlds most uncomfortable couch.<p>

He stuck on that couch right now, telling the thing, long haired blond man everything that had happened in the week he hadn't seen them. Of course, Inoichi was skeptical about everything Zabuza said, "So...demons?"

Zabuza knew he wouldn't believe him, "Yes, demons! I'm telling, I've got fucking demons after me!"

Inoichi wrote something down on his yellow notepad, "And these demons are coming in the forms of people you've killed before?"

Zabuza yelled in frustration, "Yes! That's the freaky part! When I looked back, all the guys that were following me looked just like the guys I killed years ago!"

Inoichi gave a small 'hm', and asked, "By any chance are these the same three people that you keep dreaming about murdering?"

Zabuza nodded vigorously, "Yes, the stripper, the business man, and the kid!"

Inoichi wrote something else down, "And you said that none of them had any eyes in their sockets, correct?"

Zabuza hated repeating himself, "Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you!"

Inoichi finally looked at his patient, "Zabuza, these aren't demons."

"You know something else that looks like that and can magically vanish?" Zabuza asked with a great amount of irritation.

"Nothing from reality, no," Inoichi responded, "They aren't real at all. I believe that what you're seeing are merely figments of your imagination."

Zabuza scoffed at the accusation, "Bullshit, that kid was real."

Inoichi needed to convince him, "Was he? You said it began to snow when you were with him, yet when you looked around when it was all done, the snow was gone. You said that these demons never had eyes. I think that someone else would notice that. You said that you shot him with your magnum before he vanished. Why don't you pull it out for me?"

Zabuza looked at him skeptically, but pulled out his magnum anyways, "Okay, now what?"

"Take out the clip," Inoichi intrusted him, "And tell me how many bullets are in it."

Zabuza took out the clip and looked inside, "It's a full clip...wait a second…"

Inoichi smiled, seeing he'd gotten the point, "You never shot the boy, it never snowed, and you never even saw the boy to begin with."

Zabuza looked at the clip in awe, "No way, I know that I shot that kid!"

Inoichi wasn't convinced, "Don't you see it Zabuza? It's all going back to your dreams. Most of your old kills you can get over, but something about these three stuck with you. You can't let them go, and brain is letting you know that with dreams and hallucinations."

"You saying I'm going crazy?" Zabuza asked with some anger.

Inoichi shook his head as he wrote something else on his notepad, "No, not at all. Something about those kills were traumatic for you, so you suppressed them in your memory. Now these memories are resurfacing and it's becoming difficult for you. It's all perfectly natural considering what you did before you came to see me."

Zabuza was lost, "Whatever, as long as I'm not crazy I don't give a shit. So what do I do about this?"

Inoichi raised an eyebrow, "Have you changed your mind about confronting your past?"

Zabuza shot him a glare, "Hell no! I'm not taking a trip down memory lane! Nothing good could come from that!"

Inoichi sighed and leaned back in his chair, "That's not true, but I can see there's no convincing you. Just keep processing the information slowly for now. Hopefully you're mind will just remember all of this on it's own over time, although it will take much longer."

Zabuza could clearly remember why he hated coming here, "This is all just a bunch bullshit."

Inoichi set his notepad down, "So you're told me. We're out of time for today, but we'll pick back up in a week. I'm sure plenty will happen with your mind between now and then."

Zabuza got up from the chair and stretched, "Whatever you say doc. I already paid your receptionist, so we're done for now. Next time I come here, you better have something good for me."

Inoichi laughed at the idea of a quick fix, "That's not how it works Zabuza and you know it. It takes time to heal wounds like these. See you in one week."

Zabuza hated it when he talk all cryptic like that, "Yeah, see you in a week...you crazy son of a bitch."

Inoichi gave another little laugh as Zabuza left, "Like I'm the crazy on in this situation."

* * *

><p>Zabuza got home, popped a couple more pain pills, and then laid back on his couch to think about what Inoichi had said. Was it true? Was he just imagining these demons? And if they really were there, why? What did the kid mean when he said that they wanted Zabuza to pay for his sins? The aged assassin really couldn't make any sense out of it, not that it mattered at this point. Nothing had happened on his way home, so it was all good for now.<p>

After lying around the house doing nothing for awhile, he decided that he'd call up an old friend from back in his assassin days to see if he could make any sense out of what was going on. Who knew, maybe his buddy had gone through the same thing?

Zabuza picked up his phone and dialed the number for his old friend, letting it ring a couple of times before a voice even deeper and gruffer than Zabuza's picked up on the other end, "Yo?"

"Hey Kisame, it's Zabuza," Zabuza told him. Kisame might have been an even better assassin than Zabuza was, but he was not retired as well.

The other assassin hadn't been expecting his call, "Zabuza? What's it been, three years? What the hell are you calling me for?"

Zabuza mulled over how he wanted to segway into this, "I've got a couple of things to ask you, but there's a couple things I've gotta tell you for it to make any sense. Sit back and relax man, I've got one hell of a story for you."

Kisame was soon forced to listen to Zabuza weave his tale about dreams, psychiatrist, and most recently the demons. Zabuza had no idea what he expect Kisame to say, and for a while the other assassin didn't say anything. Finally, he said, "Dude, are you fucking with me or something? You've gotta know how crazy you sound right now, don't you? Demons aren't real and even if they were, they've got better shit to worry about than you. I think you need to lay off the pills and the booze for a while. It was fine when you were younger, but you're too old for it now."

Zabuza groaned in annoyance, "And here we go again. I'm not crazy, I know what I saw. There's no way that stuff wasn't real!"

"I think you should just listen to your psychiatrist on this one," Kisame told him honestly, "You're just feeling guilty for the people you've killed. Trust me, it happens to almost everyone eventually...although maybe not to this extent."

Zabuza was a little reassured by that, "Happens to everybody huh? I don't know, maybe you're right. Maybe I've just got a screw loose or something."

Kisame chuckled from the other end, "You've always had a screw loose, it's just now coming back to bite you on the ass. I'm gonna let you go, good luck with that crazy shit."

Zabuza was about to say more, but Kisame hung up before he could. He sat up and looked around his house, which was completely empty. There was no sign of demons or even the slightest thing wrong. Maybe the lack of sleep from the nightmares was getting to him? That was a definite possibility, with how little sleep Zabuza had gotten as of late.

That was the thought that ran through Zabuza's mind and he slowly drifted off to sleep, taking an accidentally mid-day nap. As all people do who sleep, he soon started to dream…

* * *

><p><em>Zabuza's began to dream one of the most vivid visions he'd ever had. If hadn't known he'd fallen asleep, he might have thought the dream was real. He looked around the room, trying to figure out where his subconscious had taken him this time. There was a clear smell of smoke and alcohol in the air. Beautiful women were all around him, wearing little to no clothing. "Pour Some Sugar On Me," played all throughout the place. This was a stripclub, no question about it.<em>

_That's when it hit Zabuza, that this wasn't just a stripclut, it was THE stripclub. This was the stripclub where the striper Ameyuri had worked before Zabuza put a bullet in the back of her head. It was more than a little unsettling to be here again._

_He looked to see the red haired Ameyuri walking walking towards him. Her face wasn't that pretty but the men who came here weren't all that worried about her face, "Hello there big boy. Care for a lap dance?"_

_Zabuza began to notice something strange about all this. His dreams always started out going the exact same way they had in real life and only changed right after he'd killed his victim. He'd never talked to Ameyuri, so this was totally unprecedented, "Um, no thank you. Good luck with someone else though."_

_Ameyuri got on top of Zabuza and straddled his waist, "It's on the house, so why don't you just sit back and enjoy it?"_

_Zabuza wanted desperately to wake up, "Please, that's not necessary."_

_Ameyuri began to rotate her hips and said, "Oh, but it is Zabuza. It's very necessary."_

_The hairs on the back of Zabuza's neck started to stand up and he could barely whisper, "How do you know my name?"_

_Ameyuri giggled, "Oh, I know so many things about you Zabuza, but the one I'm most interested in is how you don't think me or my friends are real."_

_Zabuza looked into her eyes to see the same soulless casums he'd seen on the boy, "You're not real! You're just figments of my imagination!"_

_Ameyuri had something hidden in her hand, "We're real Zabuza, and we're coming for you. We won't stop until you understand exactly what you've done. I think it's time to end your little nap. See you later Zabuza. Don't forget that little gift you gave my friend."_

_She threw something at his head, something small and matelic from the way it felt. Zabuza looked down to see a bullet in his hand, a bullet for a magnum as a matter of fact. It had a spot of blood on it and it looked it had hit the back of a wall or something, "Where did you get his?"_

_Ameyuri rolled her eyes, "You shot into my friends neck early today. You've got a very bad memory, don't you?"_

_Zabuza just looked down at the bullet as the world around him began to fade away. It was like some kind of sick joke..._

* * *

><p>Zabuza shot awake on the couch and nearly screamed. He almost screamed once again when he saw what was on his chest. It was the bloodied, smashed bullet that Ameyuri had thrown on him.<p>

He picked up the bullet and looked it over, skeptically. It looked exactly like what a bullet that had been blown out of a guy's neck and into a wall was supposed to look like. Zabuza grabbed the bullet off from his chest and threw it across the room. No way in hell was he waiting a month to see Inoichi again.

* * *

><p>He went back and saw Inoichi that afternoon, although his receptionist wasn't happy about it. She told him he'd just have to wait a week like the doctor had asked him to, but Zabuza didn't listen. What he ended up doing was waiting in the waiting room until Inoichi day ended and he had a free moment.<p>

As the man was walking out of the office, Zabuza came up to him, "We need to fuckin talk."

Inoichi never would've guessed Zabuza was one to wait up for him. He usually hated to see his psychiatrist, "Something wrong Mr. Momochi?"

Zabuza pulled out the bloody bullet and showed it to him, "You're damn right something's wrong. Look at this shit!"

Inoichi saw the bullet and got very nervous, "What the hell did you do?"

Zabuza growled, "For fuck's sake, I didn't do anything. I had a nightmare and when I woke up that was on my chest. Still think I'm crazy."

Inoichi tossed the bullet back to him, "I don't know about crazy, but you're a little unstable. It's your mind playing tricks on you again."

Zabuza looked at him like he was crazy, "Playing tricks on me! That's a real bullet right there! That's real blood!"

Inoichi opened his office door and walked into the hall, Zabuza was still following him, "You keep trophies from your old kills, don't you?"

Zabuza blinked a couple of times, confused, "Yeah, how did you know that?"

Inoichi expected as much, "I'm a psychiatrist, I pick up on things. I'll be willing to bet that was just one of the trophies you kept. Maybe you were sleepwalking and put it on your chest?"

Zabuza didn't understand, "Why in the hell would I do that?"

Inoichi had an easy explanation, "There's something about these murders that's bothering you Zabuza. You're mind wants you to face it, so it's doing things to try and force you to."

Zabuza wanted to tell him that was bullshit, but it didn't sound totally out there. He did keep some of his bullets from his past kills, and they all kind of looked the same. Could that be what was going on here? Was he still just going nuts, "So you think it's just my head fucking with me again?"

Inoichi would've put it more elegantly, but that was the idea, "Yes, that is my theory. Until you face whatever these dreams are trying to make you face, they're not gonna stop. I don't think traditional therapy can help you."

Nothing traditional ever worked for Zabuza, "So either I go and deal with this shit of I'm gonna go completely insane?"

Inoichi mulled it over in his head, "I don't know if you'll go totally insane, but it won't be good for your psyche, that's for sure."

Zabuza scratched the back of his head, "So...what should I do?"

Inoichi could only think of one thing for him to do, "What else, go to these places that are in your dreams and deal with it."

Zabuza felt a chill run up his spin, "You want me to go and try and face down these fucked up sons a bitches? No thank you!"

Inoichi knew he was gonna get defensive, "I know that it's scary, but it's either this or slowly start to lose your mind. Which one sounds worse to you?"

Zabuza could see that he was going to be faced with a tough decision, "I...I don't know...I really don't know…"

Inoichi felt kind of bad for the guy. Sure he had done some bad things in his past, but he was trying to make up for that now. That wasn't an easy thing to do, "I really can't tell you what to do here Zabuza. This has to be a choice you make on your own."

Zabuza never let others sway him anyways, "I'll try, but this isn't gonna be easy. If you'll excuse me, I should probably head home to try to make some sense out of all this."

Inoichi gave a simple nod and the two parted ways. Zabuza was coming to a crossroad in his life. He didn't know if he facing his own mind, demons, or something else entirely, but he did know whatever choice he made was going to change his world forever. This was something he had to be absolutely certain about, and he was too tired to think about it tonight. He went home, took some sleeping pills with his usual swig of whiskey, and went to bed.

* * *

><p>Zabuza slept one of the deepest and comforting sleeps he'd had in a long time that night. There were no demons or monsters in his dreams that night, just sweet nothingness. He woke up feeling totally refreshed and rejuvenated. When he looked in the mirror the bags under his eyes were almost gone and he looked at the clock to see he'd slept for nearly 12 hours. Not that he was complaining, it was exactly what he needed to do.<p>

Once he'd taken a shower and had gotten some fresh clothes on, Zabuza went down stairs to try and start his day. There was a new bottle of whiskey in his cupboard, and felt like celebrating his good night's sleep by opening it. Zabuza cracked open the seal and took big swig from the bottle. It started out with the usual taste and sting that he relied on so heavily, but soon he could tell something wasn't right. He felt something hit his lips, something he knew shouldn't have been there.

Pulling the bottle away from his lips, Zabuza examined the buddy closely to see what was inside. After a little bit of squinting, he was finally able to identify what the foreign object. It was a ring, with the initials FS on it. That stood for Fuguki Suikazan, the head of a major hair product company. However, now he was dead as a doornail, thanks to Zabuza.

He dropped the bottle on the ground, breaking it into a couple dozen pieces. How in the hell did that ring get in the bottle? You might be able to force the ring in there, but the bottle was sealed, as in it had never been opened. There was no way the should've been in there.

Zabuza but his head in his hands, "I'm going fucking crazy…"

A new voice could be heard from the living room, "You're not going crazy...you were already there and you're just now realizing it. There's a very distinct difference."

Zabuza ran out to his living room to and saw the last person in the world he expected see in his living room, "Fuguki?"

Fuguki was indeed in his living room with the same empty eyes the others had. He was sipping a glass of Zabuza's whiskey, "Hey there Zabuza, it's been awhile hasn't it?"

Zabuza smacked his forehead, "Oh, it's just another one of these fucking dreams. And here I thought I had finally gotten a good night's sleep."

Fuguki was a man with long brown hair, and he was wearing the same blue suit he always did, "That would be the only logical conclusion, since I died quite some time ago."

Zabuza sat down in the chair across from him, "I put a bullet in your chest 4 years ago. So are you going to torture me like your little buddies did?"

Fuguki took a sip from his drink, "More or less, yes. Hey, do you wanna see the scar you left on my chest?"

Zabuza was almost sure he was crazy now, "Oh what the hell? Sure, let's see the damn scar."

Fuguki unbuttoned part of his shirt and showed Zabuza his chest. He was a somewhat fat man, but you could still see the scare pretty clearly, "You really did a number on me man. Thanks for not shooting me in the head though. It was nice to have an open casket funeral."

Zabuza was done with the bullshit, "Enough of this! What the hell do you guys want? Are you even fucking real?"

Fuguki threw back the last of his drink and then said, "We're as real as you want us to be Zabuza."

Zabuza grabbed Fuguki's collar and yanked him up to his feet, "Oh for god's sake, forget about you being real or not! What do you weirdo's want from me?"

Fuguki could see it was time to stop screwing around with him, "There's things Zabuza, things about us that you never knew. You killed us and all you ever bothered to learn about us was our names. That pisses us off."

Zabuza felt like he was starting to understand, "You want me to find out who guys were? Why?"

Fuguki looked at him with empty eyes and gave him a dark chuckle, "Because if you thought you felt guilty before, you're in for something even worse when you find out the truth about us. We want you to fully understand the consequences of your actions. Until you do, we're not gonna leave you alone."

Zabuza never figured that would be their request, "That's it? You just want me to learn about who you guys were?"

"Yes, that's all we're asking of you. Once you do that, we'll let you live your life as you wish," Fuguki said in a voice as serious as a heart attack.

Zabuza thought for a few seconds, then nodded, "If that's all you guys want from me, then I'll do it. I just can't fucking take these dreams anymore!"

Fuguki gave a dark smirk, "Good. Now go along and wake up already. We don't want you wasting any time. Start with me, then move on to Ameyuri, and then to the young boy in the mask. This is not going to be a fun journey for you Zabuza, I'm very eager to see how you handle it."

Zabuza was getting impatient, "Enough talk! Just let me wake up already!"

"Fine, go ahead and wake up. Good luck to you, Mr. Momochi," Fuguki said, before freeing Zabuza.

* * *

><p>The very next morning, Zabuza got up and started packing everything he needed in his bags. He called Inoichi and told him exactly what he was doing, although he left the dream part out of it. It surprised Zabuza a little bit that Inoichi was extremely supportive of him doing this. In fact, he told Zabuza that this was a big step for him to be taking and that he was proud of the ex-assassin.<p>

Thanks to Zabuza's devil may care lifestyle, dropping everything to go on a small scale trip was pretty easy. He had to go to one place in Konoha, one place in Mizu, and one place just outside Konoha. Zabuza was going to go in a circle, heading to the strip club first, then to the business building in Mizu, and finally circling back to the building that was just outside of Konoha. Ameyuri and Fuguki would be easy enough to find out about, but the boy was going to be a bit a of a challenge. He was just praying that someone would know who the kid was and be able to tell him what he needed to know, otherwise he'd be dealing with the demons for the rest of his life.

Once he'd gotten everything he needed, including some weapons to defend himself just in case, Zabuza rented himself a car and headed out for the three locations. This wasn't going to be fun, but it was something he had to do. It was time for him to finally face exactly what he'd done to those poor people.

* * *

><p>His first stop was of course the stripclub where he'd taken out Ameyuri. That had been a very easy kill. All Zabuza had to do was wait for her to walk out the back door and then put a bullet in her head. The silencer kept anyone from hearing the sound and then he just walked away. Now he was back to that stripclub once again, but this time he was looking for answers. Who had this woman been, and why was she so important?<p>

Zabuza walked into the stripclub and looked around. Most of the partons were disgusting, sad sack little men who couldn't get laid in a women's prison with a handful of pardons. Most of the women weren't all that attractive either, Ameyuri had been by far the sexiest woman there when Zabuza had gone there.

He walked over to the bar and sat down, "Hey bartender, can I get a beer over here?"

The bartender came over and handed him a bottle, "Sure thing. You wanna pay for that now, or just keep a tab open?"

Zabuza figured he could be here for awhile, "I'll go with the tab. I'm sure I'll be having more than one of these tonight."

The bartender wrote something down on a notepad and asked, "What are you doing in a place like this? You don't look like the kind of guy who has trouble getting women in bed."

Zabuza wasn't, he had plenty pussy in his day, "I'm not here for the fake tits. I actually had a few questions for you. How long have you worked here?"

The bartender wasn't used to questions like that, "Um, six years I guess. Why do you ask?"

Zabuza popped the top off his beer and took drink, "Do you remember a stipper who used to work here like four years ago by the name of Ameyuri? She was murdered unless I'm mistaken."

That had the bartender flinching, "Oh shit man, I remember that alright. I was a bus boy back girl got her head blown off in the fucking parking lot. Damn shame, because she was a really nice one."

Zabuza needed more than 'A nice one,' "Do you have any idea why she was killed?"

The bartender decided to light himself a cigarette, "Yes I do, although I don't want to talk about it."

Zabuza hated to do this, but pushed him harder, "Please sir, this information is rather important to me. I promise that I wouldn't be doing this unless I had to."

"Don't call me sir. My name is Tazuna," the bartender replied, "And if it's that important, I guess I can tell you. Just remember, you asked for this."

Zabuza was getting lucky today, "Thank you Tazuna, I owe you one."

Tazuna blew some smoke from his mouth, "Ameyuri had gotten raped by some big name business man named Jinpachi who'd come in here looking for a good time. He claimed it was consensual, but no one believed him. She was going to testifying against him before she was killed. Everyone knew he'd ordered her killed, but there was no proof. The bastard got off scott free since she could no longer testify. Fucking asshole…"

Zabuza was starting to understand what the demon's were talking about, even if he still wasn't sure if they were real, "Wow, that's something else. There was no other way to convict him then?"

Tazuna wished it was that simple, "There were some other possibilities, but those didn't pan out either. I don't know the full details on that part though."

Zabuza felt like shit right now. He finished his beer in no time at all, "Fuck man, that's awful…"

"Yeah it was. You need another beer?" Tazuna asked him.

Zabuza put the bottle to the side, "Why don't you give me something a little stronger? I don't think beer's gonna cut it tonight."

* * *

><p>The stripclub left Zabuza feeling less than proud of himself. Thanks to him a rapist walked without facing justice. He was hoping Fuguki wouldn't leave him feeling too much worse than he did now. To find out about Fuguki, Zabuza went to his the hair product company he'd owned before he'd been assassinated. It had taken a little doing, but Zabuza managed to set up a meeting with his old secretary.<p>

Once he got to the woman's, who was apparently named Tsunami, office, he knocked on the door and waited politely. Zabuza wanted to make a good first impression on her so that she wouldn't making getting the info he wanted to hard.

She opened the door to show her thin face and long dark hair, "You must be Zabuza. Please come in, we must do this quickly as I'm very short on time."

Zabuza stepped inside and looked around the room, which was incredibly tidy, "Since you don't have much time, I'll just cut to the chase. You're boss, Fuguki, was murdered about four years ago, correct?"

Tsunami grabbed some paper and thumbed through them. They didn't seem to be involved with the murder case, "Yes, he was. That was a crazy day, I'll tell you. Sniped from a fucking roof."

Zabuza was glad she wasn't trying to ask him questions about all this, "That would be what I was refering to you, yes. Now do you by chance remember what he murdered for?"

Tsunami thought back to that day, "Well no one knew for sure, but they thought it was related to a rape case."

Zabuza could've fainted right then and there, "A rape case?"

Tsunami nodded as she messed with more paperwork, "Yeah, and old business partner of his named Jinpachi was being prosecuted for rape and Fuguki was being called on as a character witness. Apparently he'd seen Jinpachi sexually harass some of his employes. They think Fuguki was killed to keep him from testifying."

Zabuza had to keep himself from shaking, "I see...well that's that's really all I needed. Thank you for answering my questions. I'll leave you to your business."

Tsunami didn't look at him, but said, "Your welcome, I hope you found what I said helpful."

Zabuza got out of there as quickly as he could. This just kept getting worse and worse. Could the death of this kid be related to the rape case as well? Just how much had he done for this Jinpachi? What all had he set in motion? He didn't know right now, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to know. There was one last stop he had to make now, and something told him that he wasn't going to leave it happy.

* * *

><p>It had taken a hell of a lot of doing and a lot of figuring out, but Zabuza eventually was able to find someone who could tell him about the kid he'd shot. Turns out the man who ran the magazine stand that was right across from the kid had been shot still owned the exact same stand in the exact same place. All Zauza had to do was talk to him and he could get the answers he needed.<p>

Zabuza got to the stand to see the guy who owned it was reading a magazine. He walked up to him and said, "Hey, I'm the guy from the phone who talked to you earlier. I was hoping you could clear something up for me."

The man flipped through his magazine, "Yes, I remember you. What did you need cleared up my friend?"

Zabuza didn't know where the friend comment came from, but just moved past it, "Well you see, there was a murder that occurred across from your stand four years ago. It was young boy and I was thinking that you might remember some stuff about it."

The man set the magazine aside, "You thought right. That's not something I'd forget. Haku got a bullet right in his forehead."

Zabuza finally had a name for the kid, "Haku huh...that's a nice name. What can you tell me about him?"

The man sighed, "Haku and I talked quite a lot. The kid was living on the street after his mother was killed. He said that he wore a mask because he was afraid the same people who got to his mom would get to him. She'd been raped, although he didn't totally understand what that meant, and killed so that she could be shut up. I'm gonna guess the same people who killed his mother killed him just to be safe. The worthless assholes…"

Zabuza's worst fears had been confirmed. He'd single handedly killed off every person who could put this Jinpachi person away. His stomach just kept sinking and sinking, "Thank you sure...I've um...I've got something I need to go and do...you've been very helpful."

The man waved goodbye as Zabuza walked away. Once he was out of the site of anyone, he found a nearby alley and threw up in it, out of pure guilt. His whole body was shaking right now. What in the hell had he done? This Jinpachi guy deserved to burn in hell, instead he went free to rape more women. Zabuza felt like all of this was his fault...and the could only think of one thing to try and relieve his guilt. It was time to start making amends.

* * *

><p>Jinpachi was a man who always felt very entitled to things. He was rich, he was strong, and he was smart. That meant that he deserved to get whatever he wanted, especially women! They should've felt honored that he was willing to fuck them at all. Few had ever denied him, but those who did didn't get to deny him for long. Weather or not they knew it, he was going to rock their world!<p>

He was thinking about this as he walked into his apartment. Another woman had denied him the honor of being his sexual partner, and he was planning on showing them who's boss. Planning anyways, as he didn't know what was in store for him.

Jinpachi was on his phone right now, yelling, "That bitch thinks she can find someone better? Ha, what a joke! I'm gonna fuck her until her legs turn to jelly! She's going to,"

A gunshot went off and a bullet his Jinpachi in the shoulder. He screamed and dropped his phone, falling to the ground, "Ah, what the fuck?"

Zabuza walked out of a dark corner and turned Jinpachi on his back so that they were face to face. The man was still holding his shoulder, "Hello there Jinpachi. Do you know who I am?"

"A fucking dead man, that's who," Jinpachi yelled.

Zabuza moved his gun and shot his other shoulder, making him scream again, "No, actually. I'm the man you paid to kill off all of the victims in your rape case."

Jinpachi scowled, "Okay motherfucker, you're gonna need to be way more specific than that."

Zabuza punched him in the face, "That was not the right thing to say. You see I've recently had a bit of a change of heart and the new me doesn't like being used to cover up a rape. It doesn't matter which one. In case you were wondering, I'm here to kill you."

Jinpachi started to look afraid, "You wouldn't dare! My people would be all over you!"

Zabuza put the gun to his head, "Death doesn't scare me my friend. I've done a lot of bad things in my lifetime. If your men wanna try and send me to hell, let them go ahead and try. I don't really know what's waiting for me in the afterlife, but I'm eager to find out. Oh look at me, I'm rambling here. Did you have any last words?"

Jinpachi could see just how deep into the shit he really was, "Is there anything I can do to change your mind? Money? Power? Women?"

Zabuza cocked his magnum, "No, I promised some friends of mine that they could come and visit you in the afterlife. Thank for the offer though."

Jinpachi began to cry, "Please, please, I don't wanna die."

Zabuza put his hand on the trigger, "And I don't wanna deal with my demons for the rest of my life. Since I'm the one with the gun, I win. Have a nice time in hell and maybe I'll see you there."

Before Jinpachi could keep begging, Zabuza fired a shot of into his head, blood splattering everywhere. Zabuza stood up and looked at his blood that was all over him. He was glad that he hadn't worn his coat during all of this, or he'd have a hard time getting out of here. People tend to call the cops when they saw someone covered in blood, and at least he could cover it up with his coat.

Zabuza put the magnum back in it's holster and walked towards the door. He took one last look around the carnage filled room and felt both a little pride and a little bit of guilt. While he didn't know if what he'd done was right, he at least found some comfort in knowing Jinpachi finally got what was coming to him.

* * *

><p>When Zabuza got home, the first thing he did was take of his bloody clothes and burn the. He had no clue if the cops were gonna be after him or not, as he'd been very careful not to leave evidence, but he still it was necessary to burn the blood soaked clothing. Then he grabbed himself a shower, letting the hot water was away any trace of his sins, at least on the outside.<p>

Once he was clean, he walked over to his bed and layed down, letting out a long sigh, "It's over...it's finally over…"

A new voice entered his mind, "In a sense, yes, it's over. However, the guilt will never truly leave your soul."

Zabuza knew who's voice that was, "Hey kid, I got him you. I got the son of bitch for you and your mom. Oh, and Fuguki too."

Haku was indeed grateful, "Yes you did. So do you think we're real now?"

Zabuza was almost certain, "I never knew your cases were related, so you've gotta be real."

Haku countered, "Perhaps you knew all along and merely suppressed it? We could still just have been figments of your imagination."

"Ah, it doesn't matter anymore," Zabuza mumbled, "At least I'm free for now. There could be more demons like you waiting for me in my head, but I'll deal with them when they come...I'm glad I learned your name Haku."

Haku did not responded, he merely let Zabuza drift into a deep slumber. The assassin could feel more demons lurking around the corner for him, but they would wait. Zabuza had done something good today, and he was going to cling to that. For the first time in a long time, Zabuza went to sleep with a good feeling in his heart. With that, he could rest easy...or so he thought.

Dozens of people surrounded him, all of them with the same missing eyes that there three demons before them had as well. They said in whispering disturbing voice, "We're next Zabuza...you're not done yet...you've got much more making up to do...for now just sleep...we'll be waiting."


	5. A Perfect Seduction

Hello gals and ghouls, and welcome to the next chapter of Naruto: The Horror Chronicles. This little tale will be focusing on a very special woman by the name of Temari and one lazy genius detective known as Shikamaru. What the hell am I talking about? Well I guess you'll have to read to figure out that one. Be warned, there will be a some lemon moments in this one. I felt that I should do at least one lemon in this fanfic. I do hope that you enjoy it.

* * *

><p><em>"Seduction is often difficult to distinguish from rape. In seduction, the rapist often bothers to buy a bottle of wine." <em>

_Andrea Dworkin_

Detective Shikamaru Nara had seen plenty of fucked up things over his years on the force. Men having their way with dead bodies, a woman who kept her lovers heads, and even a couple who ate strangers that they'd invite off of the street. However, this just might have the the freakiest think he'd ever seen.

Shikamaru was a tall man with black hair that almost looked like a pineapple because of the way it spiked up. He was a rather lazy man, so when he'd gotten the call at 5:00 in the morning, he'd been more than a little pissed. Some housekeep had come in to the man's house early that day and found the man dead in his bed. Yet, the was far more than just dead.

This man, whose name Shikamaru didn't really want to know, was found lying on his bed with the life sucked out of him. Literally, he was nothing but skin and bone and it look like almost everything else had been sucked right out. His skin had turned a blackish color too, making it seem even stranger.

They'd called Shikamaru because he was the smartest person in all of Konoha. He may have been lazy, but he was a freaking genius for sure. That didn't help him what the hell had figured out here though. The man had no marks on him that showed any signs of foul play, but this guy clearly didn't die of his own free will.

The first thing Shikamaru could think to ask was, "Do you think that maybe this is a disease of some kind? I mean, it doesn't look like he was necessarily murdered."

Asuma, a friend of his who was a detective as well, didn't think so, "The medical guys got here before you and they said that no disease or condition on earth could do this in just one night. The maid said that he was just fine the night before."

Shikamaru walked around the bed, looking over the man, "Well this is troublesome. I can't think of any poison or drug that could do something like this. Fuck man, this is just messed up."

Asuma was hoping Shikamaru could shed some light on this stuff, "I know it is, but I need you to do your magic and figure out what the hell happened here."

Shikamaru knew that the 'magic' he was talking about was his deductive reasoning skills. It only took him about three seconds of looking around the room to figure out one thing, "He was with a woman last night."

Asuma blinked a couple of times and looked around, "What makes you draw that conclusion?"

"It was cold out last night, but the guy's bare ass naked," Shikamaru started, "Unless you wanted to go broke from your heating bill, you'd have some clothes on."

Asuma noticed that everything Shikamaru said was true. There wasn't a stitch of clothes on the man, "Alright, that does make it seem more likely. Got anymore proof?"

Shikamaru pointed to all of the clothes around the room, "His clothes are scattered all over the place and his keys and wallet are just haphazardly thrown on the desk. Considering how well kept the rest of the house was, I don't think this guy would do that unless he had something distracting him."

Asuma didn't need anymore convincing, "Alright, so then where's the girl? You'd think she's still be here if they had sex."

Shikamaru thought it was odd too, "It's very rare that women leave men in the middle of the night. Even if they just want a one night stand, they'll usually just stay and leave in the morning. Why bother going home that late at night, right?"

Asuma scratched his scraggly beard, "I don't see the logic in it. Anything else?"

Shikamaru looked around room but said, "Sorry, but nothing else about this place jumps out at me. Nothing that would cause him to be murderd anyways. I think our best bet right now is to try and figure out where he went last night, then find the woman who slept with him. Maybe she'll know something."

Asuma had to agree, "Yeah, that sounds about right. I'm gonna go get a bite to eat at the diner. You wanna come with me?"

Shikamaru didn't see why not, "Only if I can bum a cigarette off you in the car. I forgot my smokes at the house."

Asuma laughed a little, "Haha, deal."

* * *

><p>Shikamaru was very happy to his morning smoke in on the way to the diner. All of his friends tried to tell him that he shouldn't do it, but cigarettes wasn't something Shikamaru felt he could give up. He didn't smoke around his friends, so at least he was considerate.<p>

They got to the diner and got themselves some breakfast, both of them were starving since they went straight from their houses to the crime scene. Asuma got some chicken fried steak with some hash browns and Shikamaru got some eggs over easy with bacon and some toast. Both of them got black coffee, they weren't the kind of people to add much to what they ate.

The two of them finished their breakfast at pretty much the perfect time, as the others finished interviewing the maid just in time. She told them the victim had gone to a bar called The Drunk Tanuki the night before. Asuma and Shikamaru would head there and see if the bartender remembered this guy and if anyone left with him. Thanks to his drivers license, they actually had a decent picture of the guy.

Asuma drove once again and the bar wasn't very far away. It was barely two mile from the diner. Shikamaru looked at the sign, which featured a tanuki with a large mug of beer, "How have I never noticed this place before? I must drive by it like everyday."

"You've never been much of drinker Shikamaru, this isn't the kind of place that'd be on your radar," Asuma pointed out, "You prefer to smoke like a chimney. Must have picked that shit up from me."

Shikamaru figured that was about right, "Good point. Come on, let's go see what sad sacks they've got inside here during the day."

Asuma followed Shikamaru inside, "Oh goody, won't this be fun."

They got in there and looked around. There were two or three people just sitting around doing nothing other than getting drunk. It was kind of depressing to see actually. Shikamaru sighed, "Talk about wasting your life. I mean, this is just...holy shit."

Asuma could see Shikamaru's eyes were glued onto something. He followed Shikamaru's line of sight and his jaw just about hit the ground.

Standing at the bar was a woman that could only be described as a goddess. She had blonde hair that was tied into four strange kind of ponytails. Her skin was a beautiful tan color and it was completely and utterly smooth. The woman's eyes were a couple of mesmerizing green emeralds and her lips were a sweet pinkish color that was clearly natural. It seemed like her legs went on for miles and she perfectly curvy, D-cup breasts and heart shaped buttox. All she was wearing was a pair black shorts and fishnet stockings, with a simple purple top that showed off her assets. On top of all of this, she clearly had an attitude that just screamed she was in control. This woman could bring any man to his knees, and every man in the bar seemed to be staring right at her.

Asuma didn't even know what to say, "Damn, if I wasn't married, I'd be hitting on her so fucking hard. I'd get shot down, but I'd be hitting on her."

Shikamaru couldn't deny her beauty, "She's something alright. Let's go and talk to her. Hopefully she remembers our guy."

The two of them walked over to her and she noticed them right away, "Well hi there boys. You don't look like the kind of people to be in a bar in the middle of the day. What can I do for you?"

Shikamaru and Asuma pulled out their badges, "We're detectives actually. I'm Shikamaru and my bearded friend here is Asuma. Mind if we ask you a couple of question miss?"

She reached out and shook both of their hands. When she shook Asuma's, nothing really happened, but Shikamaru couldn't swore he saw some kind of light go of in her eyes when she shook his. The moment there skin touched, the woman's grin got wider, "No, I'd love to answer some questions. I'm Temari by the way, I own this place."

Shikamaru even found her voice to be seductive. He pulled out the victims license and showed it to her, "This guy came into your establishment last night. Is there any chance you remember him?"

Temari suddenly started to blush, "Well yeah...I kind of went home with him last night."

Shikamaru mumbled without thinking, "Lucky son of a bitch…"

Temari quickly asked, "I'm sorry, what was that?"

Shikamaru quickly caught himself, "Nothing, nothing at all. So you went home with him and the two of you spent the night together?"

Temari looked embarrassed, "Yes, we did. He got really drunk, so I called him a cab before I closed up. I shared the cab with him and next thing I knew, we were in his house. When I finished my night with him, I felt kind of...for lack of a better word, slutty. I left almost immediately after we were done because I felt so embarrassed."

Shikamaru really couldn't see any holes in that story, but he had one question, "Why did you guy's share the cab?"

Temari suddenly gave a smirk as if she was glad he asked, "Oh, I didn't live that far away from him. I just figured it'd be cheaper."

Shikamaru made a mental note to check on that later, "Okay, that makes sense. How was he when you left him?"

Temari refiled one her customers glasses and shrugged, "He seemed just fine to me. Why, did something happen to him?"

Asuma nearly laughed, "You could say that. He's dead."

Temari gasped, "Really, how did he die?"

Asuma knew better than to tell her that, "Let's just say that it wasn't pleasant. That's pretty much all we need to ask you right now, but be ready in case we need to talk to you again."

Temari gave them a sweet smile, "Sure, I don't really leave town much anyways."

Asuma walked away, but Temari stopped Shikamaru before he could, "Excuse me, detective. I just wanted to the let you know that what I did last night isn't the kind of thing I typically do. I'm not the kind of girl who sleeps around with just anybody."

Shikamaru could see why, "I'd believe that, you've certainly got the looks and you seem very nice."

Temari blushed like a schoolgirl, "Why detective, are you hitting on me?"

Shikamaru suddenly got very flustered, "Well I...I mean I...I was just…"

Temari pushed him playfully on the shoulder, "I was just playing with you, calm down."

Shikamaru took a deep breath, "What can I say? I'm not used to women like you hitting on me."

Temari got a mischievous grin, "Really, a cute smart guy like you? That's not something I would expect."

Shikamaru turned the color of a bright red tomato, "Okay, now you're the one hitting on me."

Temari looked at him with those beautiful eyes, "Oh, you noticed that? Well single girls tend to do that."

Shikamaru may not have been good with women, but he picking up what she was trying to say, "I'm almost certain you want me to ask you out on date here."

Temari gave a little giggle, "For a smart guy, you sure don't' seem to be that great with women."

Shikamaru really didn't know what to make of this girl, "It's troublesome, but I get that a lot. So did you have any place in mind, or did you want me to choose somewhere to go, or what?"

Temari took out a napkin and a pen, beginning to write something down, "This is my address, why don't you come by around 8:00 and I'll make you some dinner."

Shikamaru was a little thrown off by her forwardness, "You want me to come to your house on a first date? That's unusual...no offense."

Temari waved it off, "I know it's not typical, but I don't like going to restaurants on the first date. Getting to know a guy is important on a first date, and that's easy for me to do if I'm somewhere I feel safe."

"Most women feel it's risky to give a guy there address before they get to know him," Shikamaru noted.

Temari didn't seem nervous, "Trust me, I can more than take care of myself. Besides, I just have this...feeling about you. So will you come?"

There was no way in hell Shikamaru was gonna say not to her, "Of course. I'll be there at 8:00. You better feel special, I'm skipping my mid-night nap for this."

Temari rolled her eyes, "Well aren't I just the most important girl in the world. See ya tonight."

Shikamaru nodded and left, "Yup, see you tonight."

He walked out of the bar looking at the napkin in his hand. He couldn't believe this woman had actually hit on him. Shikamaru got in the car to find a confused Asuma waiting for him, "What took you so long? You stayed in the for like five minutes after I left."

Shikamaru showed him the napkin, "I was doing some business. Looks like she really does live near the victim. Her story checks out."

Asuma couldn't see any holes in it, "We can't tell if he was drunk because the guy's got no blood to test, but yeah, she seems like she's not lying. Why'd she tell you where she lived in the first place?"

Shikamaru but the napkin in his pocket and said, "Because I've got a date with her tonight, not that it's any of your business."

Asuma put his arm around his friend, "Well good for you man. You're lucky I've got Kurenai, or I would've been all over her."

Shikamaru rolled his eyes, "Sure you would've. Anyways, It's not really a big deal. I mean sure she's hot...and funny...and smart…"

Asuma had never seen the boy so into a girl before, "Man Shikamaru, you're not even in bed yet and you're already drooling over this girl. You got it bad man."

Shikamaru scowled and took another one of Asuma's cigarettes, "Shut up and drive. The date's at 8:00 so I've gotta be done with my shit before then."

Asuma took a cigarette of his own, "Come hell or high water Shikamaru, we'll get you out of there by 8:00."

Shikamaru lit his cigarette and took a long a drag. His friends like to give him a lot of shit, but at least they came through for him when he needed them too.

* * *

><p>The rest of Shikamaru's day was spent trying to make sense of what happened to the man who'd been sucked dry. Even the coroner didn't even know what to make of it. All of the man's organs and what not was still there, they were just sucked dry. It looked like someone had put the man on a fruit dehydrator for crying out loud. Nothing on earth could've done something like this, no man or disease. To put it simply, it was impossible.<p>

Shikamaru looked over everything they'd found, but none of it gave him any clue what was going on. He decided to go back and look into the national database to see if anything like this had ever happened before. Much to his shock, it actually had, but it was incredibly rare. It had only ever happened once in Konoha, but it had happen in four cities before. They were almost exactly 20 years apart, each and every one of them. There seemed to be some kind of pattern here, one that he couldn't deny.

There was an old saying the Shikamaru lived his life by. When you eliminated what was impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, is the truth. That was why he was a religious man. Shikamaru had seen true evil in the world, and if there was true evil, logically there had to pure good as well. Essentially, if there was a devil, there must be a god.

Most people would say that logic proved that there's no way there's supernatural things in the world. However, Shikamaru felt it was the exact opposite. Things like this case showed him that there were things in this world they couldn't explain. So there must be things they didn't understand yet, things they had to call supernatural. Whatever had done this wasn't natural, or wasn't human at least. That meant he was clearly going to have to approach this case in a different way.

All of this thinking was starting to make Shikamaru's head hurt. Luckily, the day was over now, and Shikamaru could go and prepare for his date. Just like Asuma had promised, he made sure that Shikamaru had all of his work done before 8:00 came, so he got leave with more than enough time to get ready.

He got to his house and put on some of his nicer clothes, but he didn't want to wear anything to nice. Shikamaru didn't want to come off as trying too hard or as seeming snobby either. In the end he settled on a pair of nice black pants and black dress shirt. It looked nice on him, but didn't make him seem like anything he didn't want to either.

Once he had the proper clothes on, he left to go and meet up with his date at her house. This was the most effort he'd put into a date in a long time. All he could hope was that it went well.

* * *

><p>Shikamaru got to Temari's house to find that it was pretty nice, but not over the toply ridiculous either. He knocked on the door and waited for Temari to come out, noting how well kept the plants were around the house. This girl clearly had a lot of times on her hands.<p>

He snapped out of his thoughts when he heard the door clicked open and Temari walked out. She was wearing a beautiful dress black strapless dress, it was simple, yet very elegant at the same time, "Hey there detective, you look nice. Didn't expect you to clean up so well."

Shikamaru fired back, "And I didn't expect you to look that damn good. Man, you're really beautiful tonight."

"Well thank you. Please come in, I've cooked us up something really nice," Temari said, motioning for him to come inside.

Shikamaru got inside and Temari lead him to the kitchen. He couldn't stop himself from looking at her ass as walked. Even the way this woman moved was seductive, swinging her hips with every step.

They got to the table and found a pasta dinner waiting for them. It was alfredo noodles with chicken and was garlic bread and a nice salad there as well. It was one of Shikamaru's favorite meals, "Aw this great. How did you know I loved this stuff?"

Temari sat down at the table and smiled, "Just a lucky guess I suppose. So are you gonna sit down and eat or just keep standing there like an idiot?"

Shikamaru blinked a couple of times and then just sat down. This woman seemed to be able to read him like a book. It was almost creepy.

They talked a little bit as they ate, mostly about their lives. Temari seemed to be very interested in Shikamaru's job and his family. It was hard for Shikamaru to focus on talking though, because Temari dress had a very low cut. You could actually see her chest heaving up and down as she breathed.

He did manage to force himself to hear what Temari was saying, "So your father was just as smart as you are. Sound like you've got some genetic intelligence there."

Shikamaru hadn't ever really thought about it like that, "I guess that it could be. You know I've been talking about myself an awful lot about myself. How about I hear a little bit about you now?"

Temari picked up her glass of wine and took a sip, "Not much to tell really. I've never really had a serious relationship, my parents are both dead, and I'm an only child. The only thing that really keeps me around Konoha is my bar."

Shikamaru found that a little odd, "Really, you've never had a serious relationship? But, look at you! You can't be telling me that men haven't been interested in you!"

Temari sent down her glass and took her ponytails out, letting her golden hair fall down. Shikamaru was even more taken with her when she had it down, "I never said that the guy's haven't been interested. I've had plenty of guys that wanted me, but not of them were really worth my time."

Shikamaru could have swore that even the way this woman smelled was getting to him. She had some kind scent to her the was just intoxicating, "Well then why in the hell did you agree to a date with me?"

Temari gave him a sexy smirk, "Like I told you at the bar, I've just got this feeling about you. Looks like you're pretty much done with dinner. You up for desert?"

Shikamaru rubbed his stomach, "I don't know. I'm feeling pretty full right now."

Temari laughed and got up out of her chair. She looked eyes with Shikamaru and walked over to him, sitting down in his lap, "That's cute. You actually think I meant like a cake or something."

Shikamaru looked over the incredible woman once more, "I gotta admit, I'm looking at something pretty tasty right now."

"You're too kind," Temari said as she pulled something out of Shikamaru's pocket, "Cigarettes huh?"

Shikamaru gulped a little, "You aren't a fan I take it?"

Temari took one of the cigarettes out of the packet and put it in her mouth, "You got a light?"

Shikamaru really wasn't expecting that, "Um, yeah, just give me a second."

He pulled out his lighter and lit the cigarette. Temari took a drag and then blew the smoke in Shikamaru's face. Although he didn't know why, Shikamaru found the whole thing extremely sexy. Before he knew what he was doing, Shikamaru grabbed Temari's lips and pulled her in for a long kiss. The blonde woman let out a sexy moan to let him know she approved.

Temari sucked on Shikamaru's lips and gently brushed his lips with her tongue, asking for entrance inside. Shikamaru opened his mouth in response and Temari slid her tongue inside and massaged Shikamaru's tongue with hers. He soon joined in and Temari put out the cigarette as their tongues dance around one another. She was by far the best kisser Shikamaru had ever experienced.

They broke apart and Shikamaru panted out, "Well that was fun…"

Temari was in agreement, "Yes it was. How about you join me up in the bedroom so that I can show just how much fun we can have."

Shikamaru didn't say anything, he just let Temari guided him by the hand to her bedroom. This was all so crazy. He'd just eaten the perfect meal, gotten the perfect kiss, and was being lead by the perfect woman to her bedroom. It was all so perfect...maybe even too perfect. Something about this just didn't feel right to Shikamaru.

He stopped in his tracks and Temari gave him a confused look, "Shikamaru, what are you doing?"

He looked at her emerald eyes that drew him so much, "...today, at the bar, didn't you say that you didn't do stuff like this? You know, just sleeping with a man after one night."

Temari blinked a couple of times, "Really, are you trying to say I'm a slut or something?"

Shikamaru didn't what or why he was saying all this, "No, it's just...this all seems too good to be true."

Rather than get angry, Temari actually smiled, "I see. So, are you saying there's something else going on here?"

Shikamaru gave a slow nod, "That would be my gut feeling, yes."

Temari walked over to him and grabbed his groin, "I'm impressed. Most guys only think with the head they've got down here."

Shikamaru groan a little, but backed away, "I'm not most guys. There's something about you...something different."

Temari started to circle around Shikamaru, almost like a lioness circling her pray, "Something different huh? Well then why don't you tell me what you're thinking right now Shikamaru? Please, tell me what's going on in that big old head of yours."

It was clear Temari's demeanor had changed to be more commanding, but Shikamaru found it even more attractive, "Whatever happened to that guy I was telling you about today seems to happen once every twenty years. It seems strangely coincidental that you just so happened to sleep with him the night before."

Temari could follow his train of thought, "Yes it is, but why is there any reason to think it's not just a coincidence? What have I done to make you doubt that?"

Shikamaru's eyes never left her gaze, "It's not what you've done, it's the way you are. I've never seen anyone like you. Men are just drawn to you. Tonight, you seemed to know exactly what my perfect date was. That's just not natural."

"Alright, you've got some good points there," Temari said, not denying anything, "But what else have you got?"

Shikamaru kept coming to one conclusion, "Whatever sucked the life out of that guy yesterday wasn't human...and I don't think you are either."

There was silence for a few seconds, and then Temari broke into a large smile, "I knew it, I knew what I felt inside you was perfect."

"Um...what?" Shikamaru asked, dumbfounded.

Temari had an excited, lustful look in her eyes, "You've got one of the best auras I've ever felt. You're smart, but strong at heart. You can be lazy at times, but you've also got a very strict set of moral standards. While you're not perfect, you're pretty damn good. Besides, the ones who have perfect auras always seem to have huge egos."

Shikamaru started to get what she was saying, "So you can feel people's auras? What exactly are you?"

"I am what you'd call...a succubus," Temari said, drawing out the last word.

Shikamaru had expect her to say a couple of things, but that wasn't one of them, "Well that's unexpected."

Temari knew he wouldn't be able to completely figure it out, "What, were you expecting a tight leather suit and big bat wings on my back? Sorry, that's all just a myth."

Shikamaru hated to admit it, but he was still turned on by her, "It's not like I'm an expert in lore of succubuses."

Temari was happy to explain, "A succubus is an ancient being that survives by seducing and sucking the life out of men. I've kind of lost count at this point, but I'm actually about 130 years old."

Shikamaru was piecing more and more together, "So you've been the one sucking the life out of a guy every twenty years?"

"Guilty as charged," Temari said in a prideful voice, "They were all bastards, I could tell by their aura, so I had no problem killing them. I'm actually the last remaining succubus."

Shikamaru had to ask, "Were there that many before you?"

Temari just shook her head, "No, only four or five us. Like I said though, I'm all that's left. I only need to suck the life out of a guy every twenty years, so that's the only time I ever do it. Less likely to get caught that way."

Shikamaru had one important question left, "Then why were you trying to seduce me? You just killed a guy."

Temari walked up to him and ran little circles on his chest with her finger, "I don't have to kill a guy when I sleep with him. I'd go crazy if I didn't have sex for twenty years. It just so happens that I like you and I was going to let you live."

Shikamaru knew she wasn't lying. It would be to risky to kill another guy in the exactly same town so soon, "Then why try and fuck me."

"You'll have to find out after I'm done," Temari said in a seductive voice, and undid the pin or her dress, letting it fall to the ground.

Shikamaru's eyes nearly popped out of his head. Temari naked was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen before. Her breast were firm and perky, her nipples were a perfect pink hue, and her pussy was glistening with arousal. He couldn't have dreamed up a sight this amazing.

She leaned up and whispered in his ear, "I promise that not only will live through this, but I'll give the best night of your life as well."

Shikamaru knew he should say no, his brain was screaming at him to stop, but it just felt to damn good to pass up. She once again took his head and started to lead him to the bedroom, intent on delivering on her promise.

* * *

><p>Temari had Shikamaru's clothes ripped off before they even got the the bedroom. He was kissing her furiously, and not just on her sweet lips. Her cheek, her neck, her nipples, everything was fair game and Temari wasn't complaining. She moaned as he explored her body with his tongue and hands, "Oh yeah, I knew you'd be good! Touch me, kiss me, ravage me!"<p>

Shikamaru made his way down to her soaking wet lower lips before he knew it, and he was very eager to see how she tasted, "I wonder if succubus's pussy is any better than than a regular girls?"

Temari brought her legs up around his head and shoved his head onto her womanhood, "Trust me, you aren't gonna be disappointed."

He took in her scent and used his fingers to spread her lips. Shikamaru licked all around her pussy, leaving no part of it untouched. His tongue circled around her clit and sucked up her juices, making Temari arch her back, "Oh yeah baby, just like that!"

Shikamaru was going to continue, but Temari grabbed his hair and pulled his head up, "What are you doing you troublesome woman? I was just getting started."

Temari adjusted herself so that her head was right next to his groin, "Like you said, we just started. I don't wanna cum just yet. Let me take care of you for awhile."

Shikamaru started to object, "Why can't we ju, OH SHIT!"

He was cut off by Temari taking his dick into her mouth with great skill. She didn't even need time to prepare herself, she just took his member into her warm, tight throat. Temari pulled off for just a second to tease him, "I'm sorry, were you saying something?"

Shikamaru could only think of one thing to say, "Shut up and get back in there dammit!"

Temari knew she had him, "Well, if you insist."

The amazing feeling of her throat was once again around Shikamaru's pulsing dick. As if that wasn't enough, she brought her beautiful breasts up as well and started to move them all around his tool, which was now at full lenght, "You're a pretty big boy, aren't you?"

Shikamaru hated that she felt the need to talk, "Please don't stop. You're just so good at this!"

Temari pulled her head off him completely and pushed him down so that he was on his back, "Sorry, but I can't let you cum just yet. That privilege will only come from my pussy."

Shikamaru watched as she got on top of him and started to straddle as well, "Man, you're really intense."

She positioned him right at her entrance, "No such thing as too intense when it comes to sex."

Temari impaled herself on him and they both let loose a long moan. She started to move her hips in all directions, switching between bouncing, grinding, and riding him. The constant changing kept Shikamaru guessing, and made the whole thing all the more incredible for him. He knew that he wasn't going to be able to hold it much longer, "Temari, I need to pull out. If I don't, I'll cum inside you.

Temari picked up the speed, giving Shikamaru her all, "Do it, I want you to shoot your seed up side of me! I'll come with you! Come on, cum!"

Shikamaru gripped the sheets as he body gave up and her let everything loose inside of her, both of them scream, "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Temari collapsed onto Shikamaru's chest, the both of them were panting, "That was best sex I've ever had," Shikamaru breathed out.

Temari cuddled up into him, "A succubus will do that to yeah. Are you up for round two?"

Shikamaru looked up, "Round two?"

Temari giggled as she kissed his collarbone, "I'm not even close to done with you yet. For the rest of the night, you're mine."

Shikamaru shuddered at the thought. This really was going to be the night of his life.

* * *

><p>Shikamaru woke up the next morning and found that there was literally nothing wrong with him. In fact he felt better than ever. Temari was still laying next to him, much to his pleasure. He kissed her shoulder and she slowly started to wake up, "Hey there beautiful. Last night was great."<p>

Temari knew it would be, "As if there was ever any doubt. Thank you by the way, you did a very good job."

Shikamaru puffed his chest out a little bit, "I can please a succubus. Who knew?"

Temari smiled from her pillow, "I had a feeling you'd be able to. So, do you think that you should move in with me or that I should move in with you."

Shikamaru wasn't sure if he'd just heard her right, "Hold on, what are you talking about? We spent on night together."

Temari giggled at his ignorance, "I know that silly, but we mated last night. Succubuses mate for life."

Shikamaru could feel his heart beating faster, "But I'm not the first you guy you've slept with?"

Temari sat up, "True, but you're the first guy I've let seed me. For a succubus, that makes you a mate. To put it simply, you're mine now."

Shikamaru couldn't make sense out of any of this, "Don't succubuses live forever."

Temari shook her head, "Nope, only until we decided to settle down. Once I have a baby, I'll age like a normal person does."

Shikamaru went wided eyed, "Have a baby?"

Temari seemed very pleased, "Yup, we succubuses are very fertile. You came in me like five times last night. It's pretty much a sure thing that I'm pregnant right now with your child."

Shikamaru was breathing faster, "A child...my child?"

Temari put a hand on his cheek, "Like I said, I loved your aura. I just knew that I could spend my entire life with you. The goal of a succubus is to find a man she can marry and then reproduce. Why do you think I'm the last of them?"

Shikamaru figured something out from that, "So we'll have a human baby?"

Temari held her stomach lovingly, "Yes, a human baby. We'll be great parents, I just know we will."

Shikamaru still wasn't sure how he felt about this, "Shouldn't you have asked me before you planned all this?"

Temari shrugged, "Why? You're marrying a succubus with an insatiable appetite for sex. What could be better?"

Shikamaru didn't know how to respond, "Well, that does sound pretty nice…"

Temari leaned down and whispered, "Just remember though, if you ever try to leave me or cheat on me, you will die. It's the curse a succubus puts on her mate. If you ever betray me, you'll have the life sucked out of you just like the man before, but ten times more painful...other than that thought, this'll be great."

Temari got up and left Shikamaru unsure how to feel about all this. He got a wife, a baby, and a whole new life in just one day. How would explain this to his friends? To his family? Everything had changed for him.

Shikamaru sat up and looked at Temari's eyes, which summed her up better than anything. They were just like she was; beautiful and mesmerizing, yet deadly and calculating. She was both a cold bitch and warm person. It was like Shikamaru was stuck with two people, and he just prayed he could keep them both satisfied. If he couldn't...god help him. From this day foreword, he was her property. There was a sense of fear from all this, knowing that he had this crazy bitch as his wife for of his life. Yet, there was something exciting about it too. He was a man filled with fear and joy...it was the craziest thing he'd ever felt in his life.


	6. Nine Angry Voices

Hello everyone, and welcome to the next story of Naruto: The Horror Chronicles. At first I thought I was gonna save the most important character, Naruto, for last. However, the story that I've written for Halloween itself just seems to be better. This story will follow poor Naruto as he deals with the fact that, along with his own, Naruto's got eight other personalities running around in his head. That makes a grand total of Nine, guess where I came up with that number? This is more of a psychological thriller than a horror story, but I still think you'll all enjoy it. Naruto must try and balance his everyday life as he deals with different voices in his head urging him to steal, fight, fuck, kill, or just about anything else you can think of. Will he be able to balance it out, or will his world come crumbling around him as his two most dangerous personalities start to take control? You'll have to read to discover his fate!

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><p>"<em>Language has created the word 'Loneliness' to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word 'Solitude' to express the glory of being alone."<em>

_Paul Tillich_

Humans, by nature, are very social creatures. They seek out one another, look for love with one another, kill for each other. What other human's think of people is very important to them. This is why humans who are alone tend to be driven to madness. Their souls simply need others to interact with, so they begin to create illusions where they have friends and family. Of course, these are merely lies they create to defend themselves. Some humans do eventually find others to interact with, freeing them from their madness...sometimes anyways. Yet, what happens to those with false friends who refuse to leave? What are they to do when the voices in their heads refuse to leave them? When those voice have become a part of them?

That was the problem plaguing young Naruto Uzumaki, a man with more friends than he knew what to do with...or wanted. Naruto was still just a kid, with long spiky blonde hair and deep blue eyes. There were whisker marks on his cheeks as well that no one had ever been able to explain, and he was rather attractive boy, not that it had helped him when he needed it. Both his parents had died in a car crash when he was merely 5 years old and he had no family left to take care of him. With no one who was able to take him, Naruto grew up completely alone, bounced from place to place, never staying anywhere for more than a few weeks

He made few friends as a child and his psychiatrist, which he was only able to go to because the school had one, told him that he had issues trusting people because of his parents death. The woman had said that he felt like people would leave him, just like his parents had. Naruto thought she was just crazy...that was until he started to go crazy.

Slowly but surely, Naruto's mind had begun to play tricks on him. He had gotten so lonely, never allowing himself to get close to anyone, that his mind began to make friends for him. By the time it was all said and done, Naruto's mind had created a total of 8 people for him to interact with. He never told anyone about them, but they were good enough to keep him somewhat sane.

This became a problem, however, when Naruto moved to a nice town called Konoha. He had expected to move there, stay for a month, and then move on to the next foster family like he always did. That wasn't what ended up happening.

A couple that had met him named Hayate and Yugao had both been in foster for most of their lives as we and recently gotten married. When they were volunteering at one of the local fosters homes, they fell in love with a 15 year old named Naruto. Once you got Naruto to talk to you, he was a very nice kid, and Hayate and Yugao just couldn't say goodbye to him. That meant Naruto had to stay in Konoha for the rest of his life. Luckily, he very quickly found that he liked it a lot. He made tons of friends after the first few months there and actually ended up liking Hayate and Yugao a lot too.

He may not have been alone anymore, but that didn't mean the voices left Naruto. Now, Naruto had to try and balance out the influences of the voices in his with his social life, which had not proved to be easy. In fact, it had become the hardest part of his life.

* * *

><p>Naruto awoke to the same sound that he did every morning, it was the sound of a screeching alarm clock. That sounds was the bane of not only his, but just about every persons on this earth's existence. He smacked around for a few seconds until he hit the clock, and then threw covers off from himself. After rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Naruto got up and walked over to his bedroom mirror.<p>

As his groggy eyes looked his body over, the first of many familiar voices entered his head, "_Good morning Naruto, you look rather tired today. Did you not sleep well?"_

Naruto hated how early his personalities liked to start, "No, I didn't. But you know that, now don't you Gaara?"

Gaara was the first of Naruto's personality, the very first he'd ever created in fact. He'd come about after a long day of Naruto being smacked around by one of his foster parents. Naruto figured out later on that Gaara must have been created because of his desire to get back at the man. This personality was always telling him to do horrible things to do to the people who crossed him and imagined things that could make anyone cringe. It was a miracle Naruto didn't do any of it seeing as Gaara was his first friend.

"_I was merely giving you some suggestions for how to handle the asshole in fifth hour, that's all,"_Gaara said in an all too pleasant voice.

Naruto wished that he could flip off the voice in his mind, "Fuck off Gaara."

He walked over and got some clothes out his dresser. Then he walked out of his room to go and get to the bathroom. Naruto had to walk through the kitchen to get to the shower, so his step-mom, Yugao, said as he walked through, "Hey Naruto, glad to see you actually woke up to alarm for once."

Naruto smiled at the small joke. It was in reference to the fact that the first week he had the alarm clock, he just kept hitting the snooze button until his new mom came to get him up. She was nurse at a local hospital and his new father Hayate was a police officer. They made a fair amount of money and did whatever they could to make Naruto happy, trying to make up for his previously poor life.

Yugao was making him eggs right now, like she did for him every morning, and gave him a nice smile, "You look pretty sleepy bud, do you want me to pour you a cup of coffee to go with the eggs?"

Naruto yawned and nodded, "That'd be great, thanks mom."

Yugao smiled when he called her that. It had taken some doing, but Yugao had convinced him to call her and Hayate mom and dad. She just felt like it was better that way, "Okay, you'll have one waiting with your plate. Have a nice shower."

Naruto went into the bathroom and the second of his voices began to act up, "_Oh my Naruto, you've got such a pretty mother. Step-mother actually, no blood relation there. If you don't have any blood relation, you two could have a lot of fun together."_

That was the voice of Yugito, his second and most sexually driven of voice. Surprisingly enough, this was actually the voice of a woman. She'd been created when Naruto started to go through puberty, basically Yugito was the representation of his sex drive. This personality had almost gotten him into trouble more than a couple of times, but he'd always managed to keep control of himself.

This was one of his least favorite personalities, as she was one sick and twisted freaking girl, "That's disgusting Yugito, she's family for fucks sake."

Yugito fired back, "_Yes, but not blood family. Just keep it in mind Naruto."_

This voice always made Naruto want to puke...well, when she wasn't kind of turning him on sometimes, "I'm not keeping anything in mind you sick freaking cat."

Yugito gave a perverted giggle in his head, "_A pussy cat, if you will, hehe!"_

Naruto got in the shower, tried to ignore the fantasies Yugito put in his head, and then got out to get dressed. After he was all dressed and ready to go, Naruto went out to the kitchen to get himself a little something to eat. He sat down and the table to find two eggs and some toast waiting for him, along with a nice cup of coffee.

Very please with what he found, Naruto called over to his mother, "It all looks really good mom, thank you."

Yugao called back, "You're very welcome Naruto, I'm happy to do it."

Naruto sat down and took a nice sip of his coffee, talking in the warmth and bitterness on his tongue and lips. This is when the third of his voices popped into his head, "_Ew, coffee again? Why can't we have something yummy, like chocolate milk?"_

This was one of the voices that Naruto really didn't mind all that much, Yagura. He was more or less Naruto's inner child, something like a five year old boy. Naruto wasn't sure when this little guy came around, but he liked Yagura and found him to be very funny at times. The little voice was enjoyable if nothing else, "We're big boys Yagura, we have to drink something that'll keep us awake. If you don't like it, tell Gaara to stop keeping me up at night."

Of course Naruto was only talking in his head now, as his new parents didn't know about his little problem. Yagura was pouting in his head too, "_Gaara's scary, I don't like talking to him! Did you know that he wants you to kill people? He says that you should tear them up and eat them! Drink your stupid coffee, he's way too creepy!"_

Naruto just chuckled in his head and finished up his breakfast. Then he went to start getting his various school things ready. He started to put his various books in his bags, and finally. Next thing he knew, his fourth voice entered his head. The voice of a large burly sounding man, "_Books, books, and more books. What the hell kind of good will books do you? You need experience boy, you need strength! Forget these books, I say you go out and do something that'll actually help you in the real world!"_

That was the voice of Roshi, a voice that Naruto figured must have been meant to show his more adventures side. He was the only way Naruto had ever been able to talk to anyone before he came to Konoha, so at a time Naruto needed him. However, now that he could make friends on his own, he just found Roshi to be a nuisance, "Not now you old shit, I've got to go to school. There's a big test today."

Roshi felt school was a waste of time, "_School? Ha! You should just skip school and find something better to do!"_

Gaara felt the need to add his input as well, "_Perhaps you can find a way to relieve your stress. You could kill someone, someone that you know in your heart deserves it! Just drag them out to the woods and wear a pair of gloves so they can't find you. Then, just find a rock and bash them over the head! Get yourself some dinner!"_

Yugito had some ideas to, "_Make it a girl! Have your way with her first! It's so much hotter when they resist!"_

Naruto closed his eyes and covered his ears, as if that was supposed to stop the voice. These were his personalities, this was how he must have felt deep down inside. That had to be it, right? How else could they be feeding him these ideas? Without thinking, Naruto screamed, "Please, just shut up! Just shut the hell up!"

"Are you saying something in their Naruto?" Yugao called, "I could've swore I heard you yelling."

Naruto quickly called back, "I just stubbed my toe, that's all. It really hurt!"

Yugao easily bought that, "Okay then, be a little more careful from now on."

Naruto yelled at the voice in his head, "All you just shut up! Seriously, I've got work to do today, so shut up so that I can do what needs to be done today!"

He grabbed his bag and left his room, getting ready to leave with his mother. The first half of his voice's had hit him already, how bad were the next half gonna be?

* * *

><p>Naruto got to school without any other voices bothering him. It was a pleasant drive, <em>House of the Rising Sun <em>played on the radio and he had a pleasant conversation with his mother. As soon as he got to school, he was greeted by one of his closest friends, Hinata Hyuga. Well, to be honest, he saw the beautiful blue haired girl as far more than a friend, but he just never felt it was a good idea to say anything. She deserved better than a weirdo who had multiple voices in his head. He still talked to her a lot, but it was hard when Yugito kept bombarding him with dirty thoughts about her.

After saying hello to her and discussing a book the two of them had been reading all through the first hour of the day, Naruto said goodbye to Hinata and went to his next class. That class was chemistry, and that was when more his voices started to kick in again.

Chemistry was taught by Iruka, one of Naruto's favorite teachers, a man with brown hair and a scar on his face. Naruto had started out just sitting there bored, scanning around the room and attempting to find something interesting to look at. His eyes settled on a small statue that Iruka kept on his desk. It was strange looking, but it also look undeniably expensive.

A voice went off in Naruto's head, "_You could just take it you know? All you'd have to do is wait until no one was looking and then swipe it. It'll be all yours and no one will ever know."_

Han was Naruto's fifth voice, the voice of a man who he'd created in order to help himself steal when he needed to. Back in the foster care system, there was times Naruto wasn't really properly fed. Han became the person who convinced him to take food that wasn't his when he needed to eat. Of course, now that voice had spiraled out of control and wanted him to steal everything in sight.

Naruto had an easier time talking Han down, usually at least, if you just told him why stealing wouldn't work in a certain situation, "There's no way I could hide that thing all hour and it'll be to hectic to steal it at the end of the hour. That's a definite no."

Han knew that was true, "_Okay, then we'll just steal something else. It doesn't have to be something big or something important to somebody, we just need something to give us that rush!"_

Naruto still said no, "Not while we're in school Han, it's just too risky."

Han growled in Naruto's head, "_Fine, we'll just talk about this after you get out of school!"_

Naruto just shook his head and decided to focus on talking notes. Sadly, doing that merely caused his next voice to come into play. This was his sixth voice, the voice of younger man who seemed to be in his teens, "_Oh my gosh this is lame! How can you do this without being totally stoned or something right now?"_

This voice was the Utakata, someone that represented his partying side. Utakata one came about after Naruto's first few attempts to go to parties when he was 14, it was supposed to loosen him up a bit. Although, even with Utakata, Naruto found that partying just wasn't for him. He didn't like drinking and he didn't like drugs, so parting just seemed stupid to him.

"I hate being stoned and you know it. Shut the fuck up and let me focus for now," Naruto yelled up into his head.

Utakata only wanted to get something to kill his emotions in him, "_Say whatever you want man, but a little pot would really improve this situation."_

Naruto tried to focus on his paper, but he found it hard since his coffee was wearing off. The boy was very tired, "Ugh, maybe I should just get the notes from someone else and take a nap for fuck's sake."

Another voice, this one female, joined into the party, "_No, you'll take the notes now. You'll remember them better that way. Just focus you lazy ass and get writing!"_

That was Fu, Naruto's main voice of reason. She was his seventh voice and she'd come about to help Naruto focus in school and in other places that he needed to. This was one of the voice that Naruto was very glad he had, "Fair enough Fu, we do have that big test coming up. I'll just do it."

"_Good move Naruto, now get writing. There's only five minutes left in class!" _Fu praised and warned him at the same time.

After Naruto finished up his notes and the bell rang, he packed up his things and put them in his binder. He started to leave and one of his classmates accidently bumped into his shoulder. That caused his next voice to lose it, "_Did you see that bro? That motherfucker totally bummed into to you man! Go and beat the shit of him man, right now!"_

That was the eighth and final of Naruto's voice, Killer Bee. This was the voice of a man that was born when Naruto first had to learn how to defend himself from other enemies. Killer Bee was very aggressive and helped him hold his own. He wanted to fight too much to be honest, and it almost got Naruto into a few tight situations, "It was accident Bee, I'm not gonna fight them for no reason."

Killer Bee huffed in his head, "_These motherfuckers be disrespecting you man, you want put up with that shit?"_

Naruto fired back, "People bumping into me? Yeah, I can put up with that just fine Bee. I'll call you if I need you."

Killer Bee rapped in Naruto's head, "_Aw yeah! If the shit does hit the fan, than we will defeat any man! Fool, yeah fool!"_

Naruto just shook his head and left the room, hoping this was as bad as his voice were going to get today. Key word being hoping, as he knew they'd bombarded him the moment they got the chance.

As he left the room and walked to his locker, one of Naruto's ex-friends came up to talk to him. He was only an ex-friend, since Naruto only ever knew him in his very brief partying days. Naruto didn't really even remember his name at this point, which was kind of embarrassing. The guy walked up to him and said, "Hey Naruto, what's happening man?"

Naruto knew he'd have to avoid a reason to use the guy's name, "Not a whole hell of a lot. What about you?"

The kid shrugged, "Not much, wondering where you've been recently man. I've got some really great stuff that I'd love for you to try, if you've got the cash to anyways."

Naruto wanted to say no, but Utakata was going nuts in his head, "_Take it man, fucking take it! You've got the cash and that's gotta be some great stuff if he's suggesting it! Just try it, just one time, fucking cut loose man!"_

"_Don't pay for it, steal it!" _Han screamed as well, "_This guys and asshole, just take the fucking drugs and run like hell!"_

Naruto could feel himself starting to sweat and he felt as though he was going to be sick. He was taking in too much information at once, "Please, all of you just be quiet, I don't want any drugs!"

Killer Bee had ideas of his own, "_Beat the shit out of the guy and take it man! Show him that you don't need his scraggly ass to get drugs motherfucker." _

Fu tried to reason with everyone, "_You're going to get Naruto expelled or killed or something! Naruto doesn't need drugs!"_

Utakata scoffed, "_Have you seen this sad little motherfucker? He needs drugs alright."_

Naruto suddenly yelled out loud, "NO!"

His old friend jumped back, "Woah, relax dude. If you don't the weed, you don't have to take it. It was just a suggestion. You keep being that loud and people are gonna start looking at us man."

Naruto realized what he'd done and quickly said, "Sorry, I'm just really stressed out today. Talk to you later."

The boy waved goodbye and Naruto ran into the school's bathroom. Once he saw that no one was there, he looked in the mirror and almost started to cry, "Please, I'm begging you all, just leave me be for the day. I just want one day!"

Naruto looked in the mirror and in his mind his face started to change. At first it was a boy with red hair that Naruto knew was Gaara, "_We're a part of you Naruto. We can't just stop for a day. Don't yell at us just for being you. We're your urge to kill,"_

The face again changed to that of a blonde haired woman, Yugito, "_To fuck,"_

This time into a little boy, Yagura, "_To play,"_

It changed into a man with a red hair and beard, Roshi, "_To explore,"_

Another change, into a man wearing a mask with a red hat, Han, "_To take,"_

Once again it changed, into a stoner with black hair, Utakata, "_To party,"_

Another change, into a green haired girl, Fu, "_To succeed,"_

More changing, into a large black man strangely enough, Bee, "_And to fight."_

Naruto's face returned and all of the voices said at once, "_We're you Naruto, and there's no fighting who you are."_

Naruto's lip trembled. There was still no one around, so he dropped onto his knees, and this time he did cry. The boy had no escape for these voices, and that's why he hated them so.

* * *

><p>After Naruto's little episode with his 'friends,' he cleaned himself up and went to his next class. He was both excited and terrified, as Hinata was in this class as well, and he honestly didn't how his voices would react. The incident with the mirror had scared him to his very chore, because what the voices had said was absolutely true. Deep down Naruto knew that he easily given to Yugito sexual side and do something horrible to Hinata, or become like Gaara and start to rip people to shreds. There was a monster deep down in Naruto's soul, and he didn't know if he'd be able to control it. What on earth could be scarier?<p>

Those were the thoughts that drove Naruto insane as he sat down in english class and say Hinata sit next to him. Her cute voice quickly caught her attention, "Hello Naruto, how was chemistry?"

"A pain in the ass, let's just leave it at that," Naruto said shortly.

Hinata figured he must have been stressed, although she had the reason why wrong, "Iruka can be a slave driver, that's for sure. Did you at least get most of the notes down?"

Naruto smiled at the fact that she knew him well enough to that was usually his problem, "For once, I actually got them all."

"_Hehe, I bet you'd like to get all of her, know wouldn't you Naruto?" _Asked a womanly voice in his head.

Naruto went right into a cold sweat. Yugito, why in the hell did she have to do this to him? He sent a message up to her, "Hinata's my friend, don't make me think like that about her!"

Hinata could see him getting nervous, "You okay Naruto?"

Naruto couldn't hear her with Yugito sounding off in his head, "_I'm not putting these thought in your head Naruto, they're already there. All I'm doing is making them more apparent. Do me a favor, just look at her."_

Although he didn't know why he was doing it, Naruto started to look over at Hinata. Yugito started to speak again, "_Look at this girl Naruto. That soft blue hair, those amazing eyes, her smooth creamy skin, her pouty lips just begging you to kiss them. Oh, and her breast, just look at her perfect curves! You should grab her and just ravish her, right now!"_

Naruto could feel his heartbeat speeding up and Hinata started to notice he was staring at her. She blushed a little bit, "Do I have something on your face? Seriously, you're making me blush Whiskers."

Naruto just about lost it at hearing her nickname for him. Without thinking, he grabbed her and gave her a passionate kiss. He expected Hinata to push him away, but instead she started to kiss him back. After a couple of seconds, he pulled away, panting, "I'm sorry Hinata, I don't know what came over me there. I just kind of...couldn't help myself."

Hinata was grinning ear to ear, "Aw man, it took you long enough. I've been hoping you'd do that for weeks now."

Naruto blinked a couple of times and then asked, "Really, you wanted me to do that? You're not mad?"

Hinata kissed him on the cheek, "Nope, that's what I've been hoping for since the moment I laid on eyes on you."

Naruto didn't know what to say now, "So um...are we like boyfriend girlfriend now, or what? I mean I really like you and all, I just didn't know how you felt about all this."

Hinata looked him like he was crazy, "Do you even have to ask? You and me are a full blown couple."

"Well that's great. So now what?" Naruto asked, not sure what to do since this was his first girlfriend.

Hinata giggled and pointed to the bored, "We get the work done and spend a little alone time after school. Sound good to you?"

It sounded great to Naruto. They got right to work, as he wanted to get done with school as soon as he could now. For the first time in ages, one of the voices had actually helped him. Thanks to Yugito, he now had Hinata as his girlfriend. A girl that he was totally crazy about! Did this mean that voices really were trying to help him? Maybe...maybe he really could trust them?

* * *

><p>The next class for Naruto was algebra, the bane of every high schoolers existence...well, that and alarm clocks. Fu, as usual, did her best to keep him focused and actually working on the problems. Math was something Naruto was that never good with, but he typically did okay. He kept himself up at a B at least, if nothing else. It was kind of nice, feeling like he could trust Yugito. Now he had three voice who seemed to be helping him, Fu, Yagura, who did help him keep from getting too serious at times, and Yugito. Man, it felt good to say that!<p>

However, there still six other voices that could end up getting him killed. Speaking of said voice, Naruto was just about to run into some problems with them. He was working on some of his problems, something with using elimination to to graph equations or some shit like that. One of the other students named Dosu came over to him and whispered, "Hey Naruto, I don't get any of crap. Let me copy of your paper."

Naruto hated this kid. He did this every single day, he never bothered to even attempt the work, "Fuck off Dosu, I'm trying to work here."

Dosu grabbed Naruto by the collar, "Hey fuckface, I don't really care! There's no way in hell I'm doing this class again. Either you let me copy or I'm gonna punch so fucken hard in the face that you'll be knocked out into next week. Now I don't wanna do that because then I'll have to find someone else to copy off from. So are you gonna let me copy or what?

Naruto could hear Killer Bee going off in his head as his hand started to shake, "_Come on Naruto, don't let him talk to you like that! You spent your entire life like that before you got to your new home! Don't let him take who you are!"_

Gaara didn't want to miss his chance either, "_Don't you remember all of those beatings you got? The way those foster parents would hit you, and burn, and cut you. A poor defenseless child! Well you're not defenseless anymore! Fight him! Kill him!"_

Naruto's hand went from shaking to jetting out and hitting Dosu right in the nose. The shocked boy fell backwards, holding his nose. Although she didn't she what happened, the teacher did hear something happen with the desks, "What's going on over there?"

Dosu knew that if he told her what had happened, he'd get in just as much trouble as Naruto did since he'd been trying to copy off from the boy and it also wasn't his first offense, so he kept his mouth shut about it, "Nothing, I just fell over is all."

The teacher sat back down, "Okay then, be a little more careful you guys."

Naruto glared at Dosu, "Are you and me gonna have any more problems?"

Dosu shook his head, deciding this guy was just too much work. He'd move on to another target, at least for now. Naruto felt a surge of adrenaline rush through him as Dosu walked away. it felt so good for him to finally stand up for himself. These voices were starting to seem alright!

Or at least they did until Gaara said, "_You should've just killed him. Less trouble that way."_

Naruto was questioning what he'd just done almost immediately, "Oh jeeze, I kind of lost it there."

Gaara felt he didn't lose it enough, "_There's not even any blood on your hands. I want to see blood dammit!"_

With that Naruto quickly realized how much he needed to control these voices. A little influence might be able to do some good things for him, but if he wasn't careful these things could take him over. They could turn him into the monster he feared he'd become.

* * *

><p>Naruto's next class was one that he had very few friends in. In fact, he wasn't sure if he had any people in there that he would go as far as to call buddy. He hated not having anyone to talk to in their, but he'd just have to deal with it. The next class that he attended was History, which Naruto actually really liked. History didn't force you to do excessive amounts of thinking, it was just getting to learn about things that Naruto found to be very interesting.<p>

When Han and Utakata started to try and convince him to steal a pot head's weed that was falling out of his pocket, Naruto told them to go and shove it. He wasn't gonna listen to everything the voice said just because they'd helped him out once or twice. That'd just be incident with Dosu proved that he had to pick and choose when to listen to the voices, or he could end up going off the deep end.

Then Naruto worked his way through the final class of the day, art, which proved to be uneventful. Yagura had made some suggestions for what kind of 3D object Naruto could create which made him laugh, but other than that the voices stayed silent. It was actually nice, having silence in his head for once. Naruto wished it could be like that more often.

After that, he went down to his locker and started to put everything away before he had to leave. Wait, was he supposed to leave? He had Hinata to worry about now, so he was supposed to go see her for a second right? Naruto really needed to learn how this shit worked…

Luckily, Hinata came up to meet him as he was thinking about all this, "Hey Naruto, what's up?"

Naruto turned to her and smiled, "Not much, I just got done with art. What about you?"

Hinata shrugged a little bit, "Nothing. I've got half an hour before I've gotta be picked up. What about you?"

Naruto was around the same, "Pretty much mine too. Did you wanna hang out?"

Hinata put her hand in his, "Well of course. Man, you really haven't ever had a girlfriend before, have you?"

Naruto like the feeling of her hand in his, "Not even one. You're gonna have a lot to teach me."

"Well I'm happy to do it," Hinata said as she cuddled up to him, "Come on, let's go find somewhere a little more private and talk for a while. Then we'll have some fun."

Naruto liked the sound of that, and so did a voice that was inside of his head, "_Oh boy, some fun! Looks like my little friend is finally gonna get lucky!"_

Naruto tried to look calm to Hinata, but in his head he was screaming at Yugito, "Shut up Yugito, we're not gonna do something like that! We're too young for getting lucky, as you so eloquently put it."

Yugito just laughed as if she knew something that he didn't, "_Just you wait Naruto, I think that I might be getting you going all the way with this one haha!"_

"Hinata's not that kind of girl! She wouldn't let me do that so soon!" Naruto fired back.

Yugito just kept going at him, "_Oh, but it's so much better when they fight back! Trust me, you'll see."_

Naruto almost regret what he'd said...almost, "Just shut up you perverted bitch!"

The two of them went somewhere a little quieter and talked to one another for a while. It was about twenty minutes in total, then they got to the good stuff. Hinata had been the one to instigate it, starting with a gentle peck on Naruto's lips. Then, they very quickly started to pick up pace.

It was open mouth kissing, but there was no tongue in it just yet. That was until Yugito started to hit him with perverted thoughts again, "_Now Naruto, slide that little tongue inside her mouth. Come on, she wants it! You can just feel it in the way she's after you! You'll both love it, trust me!"_

Naruto's hormones started to take over. He gently licked Hinata's top lip, eagerly awaiting a reaction. Hinata seemed a little surprised and pulled away, "Wow Naruto, I never knew you were so kinky. Wanting to french so soon."

Naruto's neves cut in, "I um...I've just heard the girls like that…you know, when you massage it."

Hinata calmed his nerves a little bit by saying, "Don't worry Naruto, I've had worse. My last boyfriend Kiba was a bit of a hound dog. A good guy, but he had a hard time controlling his labito, you know?"

Naruto just went with what she said, "Um, sure. So you wanna get started again? No tongue, I promise."

Hinata giggled and then nodded, and the two of them got back to kissing. Once again, Yugito's voice game into his mind, "_Oh that bitch is lying! She wants all of you, she just doesn't know it yet! Grab that girl and fuck her senseless. Tear her hymen and blow that girl like the little slut she is!"_

Naruto suddenly tore away from hinata and yelled, "NO!"

Hinata jumped about five feet in the air, "Naruto, what's wrong? Did I do something?"

Naruto had to get out of here, he just knew that he had to, before he did something horrible to this beautiful girl, "No way, you were perfect...just so perfect. I've just realized that I've gotta go, that's all. I had a great time though."

Hinata looked a little more relieved at that, "That's all, you might have been overreacting a bit there."

Naruto quickly agreed with he, "I know, it just came to me all at once. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

Hinata gave him a quick peck on the lips, "Yup, see you tomorrow."

Naruto turned and ran out of the school as quickly as he could. Yugito taunted him over and over again his head, "_You fucking pianezze! Haha, you can't even bring yourself to fuck a girl who likes you. Pathetic you little shit, just pathetic!"_

Naruto had tears in his eyes as he ran out. He was going absolutely insane right now…

* * *

><p>Naruto was barely able to keep himself in a normal state in the car with his mother. His mind was going nuts right now, being attacked from all sides by his voices. It was like they were getting revenge on him for trying to forget them. He just wanted to curl up in a ball and forget block them out, but there was no chance for that to happen. They'd never leave him alone.<p>

As soon as he got home, he ran into his room and shut the door. Then he looked into his mirror, "You motherfuckers? Don't you see what your doing to me?"

Gaara came into the mirror and stared Naruto down, "_What we're doing is trying to help you, you ungrateful little shit! These desires are inside of you!"_

Naruto had heard this too many times before, "So you keep telling me! The thing is, most people don't have their darker desires bombarding them every second of every single day!"

The mirror suddenly changed into an image of Dosu lying on the ground, all bloodied and beaten. It looked like his throat had be slit too. Naruto started to back away from the mirror, "Oh you sick fucks!"

The mirror changed again, this time into an image of Hinata. She was lying on the ground crying, her clothes ripped of and marks like she'd fought back were all over her body. Naruto saw his girlfriend like that and ran felt sick. He ran into the bathroom and threw up in the toilet, "Please...stop this!"

He looked back into his mirror and smashed it with his hand, causing it to bleed. The shards of it were now scattered around him, each of them contained the face of different one of his personalities. They seemed to be laughing at him, tormenting him with their voices. Naruto put his hands of his ears, screaming to himself, "Stop it! Please, just stop it!"

He grabbed one of the shards and held it to his wrists, "Leave me alone or all do it! I swear that I will!"

One of the voice fired back, "_Go ahead and do it! You're worthless anyways! You'll never leave a happy life you don't bother to listen to us! Your life's not worth living!"_

Naruto had been yelling so loudly that it caused Yugao to come and see what was going on. She burst into the room, "Naruto, what the hell are you doing."

Naruto dropped the shard of mirror that he was holding and blubbered, "Never...they'll never leave me alone!"

Yugao ran over and held him close, "Who sweety? Who won't leave you alone?"

Naruto pointed to mirror shards with tears in his eyes, "Them, they won't leave me alone!"

Yugao looked at the mirror shards in confusion. To Naruto they were still letting out the same maddening laughter, but she still heard nothing, "The mirror won't leave you alone?"

Naruto shook his head while trying to dry his eyes, "No, they're in the mirror. Well they're in my head really."

Yugao was getting totally lost. She looked him in his watery eyes, "Naruto, I love and want to help you, but you've gotta start making some sense."

Naruto knew he must sound crazy, "I've got people in my head. They're voices that I started to get a long time ago. I didn't want to tell you about them because you'd think I was crazy...you'd send me back to the those foster homes, but I don't wanna go. I like it here!"

Yugao finally got what he was saying. She'd been told when she first adopted him that there was a chance something like this could happen, since he'd had such bad luck with what foster parents he'd gotten. His mind tried to protect itself and for some reason that made him hear voice. She felt so bad for the young boy, "Oh sweety, we'd never send you back. Hayate and I love having you here. We've just gotta get you a little help and you'll be fine."

Naruto started to sniff back the tears, "You mean, I'm gonna be okay?"

Yugao held him close and stroked the boy's hair, "Of course not, you're a perfect young man. We'll take you to see a doctor first thing in the morning. How does that sound?"

Naruto nodded into her chest, "Thank you...thank you so much…"

Yugao didn't respond. She just kept clinging to her son. All she wanted was for him to feel safe.

* * *

><p>Yugao held true to her promise and took Naruto to see a doctor in the morning. He'd said that Naruto had chemical imbalance in his body that left him susceptible to a condition like multiple personality disorder. All he had to do was take some pills and it would all be fine. It seemed so strange to Naruto, that all it would take was some pills and he'd be fine.<p>

Hayate had sat Naruto down and had a talk with Naruto later that day. He told him that from now on, if Naruto ever had an issue, he needed to tell them so that he could help them. Naruto could definitely remember that for next time, because he couldn't go through something like that again. His adopted father then gave him one more piece of advice, as he'd told his parent's about Hinata in the car. It was simple really, he just told Naruto that he needed to call Hinata and tell her what was going on in case this became an issue later on. Naruto had to admit, that was actually a pretty good point. After giving his father a quick thanks, he went to his room and called Hinata. She actually thought it was kind of funny, the idea of 8 people running around inside of your head. Cleary, Naruto didn't have the heart to tell him just how bad it actually was.

All Naruto did after that was lie down on his bed. The pills wouldn't be in full effect for at least four days, so he'd have to put up with his voices until then. He'd cleaned up all of the glass that he'd spread around before, so there was nothing that forced him to look his voices in the eyes.

That didn't stop them from trying to talk though, as Yagura's little voice soon came into his head, "_Naruto, do you not like me?"_

"No Yagura, I like you," Naruto said in a very brief response.

"_Then why do you want to send me away?" _Yagura asked in an even smaller voice.

This was one of the few voices Naruto felt bad about losing, "It's not you Yagura, it's some of your friends. I just can't deal with them anymore."

Yagura started to sound angry, "_So just ignore them! It's not fair, I've never been mean to you! Please Naruto, let me say!"_

Naruto knew better than that, "You're a packaged deal Yagura. If I deal with you, I've gotta deal with all of them. If kept this up, I would've killed myself or even worse, hurt someone around me."

All of a sudden, all 8 voice started to talk at once. The combined voices sounded strange and demonic, "_You traitor! We were there for you when no one else was! You're leaving us to die you coward! We're all something that's inside of you! Fight it all you want, in the end we'll always be inside you! Say what you want, but only a monster could create monsters!"_

Naruto started to cry a little bit to himself. He feared the voices were right, that he was just fight the inevitable. These monster were like him in the end, but that didn't mean he could try and suppress them. He would just keep trying to suppress it, suppressing the darkness that slumbered inside of him...Naruto prayed that it never awoke.


	7. The Heartless Thief

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen, to the final chapter of the fear that is Naruto: The Horror Chronicles. This is another story recommended by my good friend stealth8604. I won't go into who is again, since I've already told you. This will be the only story that has another character from a previous story in it, but it's only Shikamaru in a supporting role. There will be few reference to the story he was previously in, but I will make a couple small ones. The big thing you need to know is, this one's all about Kakuzu vs Kakashi. Kakuzu is a serial killer who kills people and steals their hearts and Kakashi is a detective who catches him. However, this leads to Kakuzu nearly dying in a shootout. However, he knew long in advance that he was at risk of dying, so he set up a special way to revenge on all who wronged him. Sit back, and see who lives and who dies! I'm off to enjoy my day as the Joker

_Lorne Malvo: We could do it that way. You ask me for my papers... I tell you "it's not my car, that I borrowed it"... see where thing go from there. We could do that. Or you could go get in your car and drive away._

_Gus Grimly: Now why would I do that?_

_Lorne Malvo: Cause some roads you shouldn't go down. Because maps used to say, "There be dragons here." Now they don't. But that don't mean the dragons aren't there._

_Billy Bob Thornton as Lorne Malvo and Colin Hanks as Gus Grimly (Fargo-2014)_

* * *

><p>It had taken six months, six motherfucking months, but he'd done it. Kakashi had finally pinned down the The Heartless Thief. The Heartless Thief was one of the most legendary serial killers in the history of Konoha, and Kakashi Hatake was the lead detective on the case. Hatake was a 45 year old man who'd been a detective for the past 20 years. He had gray hair, one eye, and wore a thin mask to cover the damage done to his face from the explosion he'd been in years ago. Actually, it was the same explosion that had killed his father, an explosion that had been caused by one of the criminals his father had put away. Since his father had been detective, that's what Kakashi became in his honor. After a year on the force, Kakashi found the man who killed his father and put him away for good. That was all it took for Kakashi to start climbing the ladder of the Konoha police department.<p>

For the past year however, Kakashi hadn't felt like much of a detective. For the past year, the vicious killer who the media had dubbed The Heartless Thief had murdered 24 people. He was so named because each of the victims had their hearts ripped out post-mortem and bunch of reporters made a joke he must be stealing them because he didn't have one of his own. The man had to be an absolute genius, as he'd left no evidence in the first 12 murders. Luckily though, if you could even call something that involved murder lucky, after six months and his 13th murder, he finally made a mistake. His 13th victim had fought back and left one piece of evidence behind that Kakashi had been able to go off from.

It was small section of mask that had been torn off during the victim's struggle. The mask would've been normal to just about any other person, but Kakashi knew a little better than that. Having worn the same type of mask, Kakashi knew that the thin, breathable, yet durable material this mask was made of could only be found in one place. The Happy Mask Shop was owned by a man named Majora who made the finest masks Kakashi had ever seen. Majora called the type of mask he made for Kakashi, the Shadow Mask, and he said that only one other person had ever asked for it. A man just a little bit older than Kakahsi with black hair wore those masks as well, and he went by the name of Kakuzu.

Kakuzu was a man who'd had a lot of good luck in his life, but all of it came from something that was bad luck. His parents had died in a fire, but he inherited millions from their life insurance. In high school, his high school sweetheart crushed him, but at least that lead him to his wife. After that his wife had died during labor, but not before she gave birth to their son. Their son had died because he had a bad heart...but not before giving Kakuzu a cause to live for.

After his son's death, Kakuzu went completely and totally crazy. According to the doctors, there wasn't nearly enough hearts to go to everyone who needed one, and that was one organ that you couldn't live without, and his son had been too far down on the list to get one. No matter how much money Kakuzu offered, it was never enough to keep his soon alive. He soon began to murder people and rip out their hearts as some kind of revenge.

Kakashi didn't find out all of this until later, but he was able to figure some of it out on his own. It wasn't until digging deeper that he pieced all of it together. The mask hadn't been enough to convict Kakuzu though, so Kakashi had to keep trying and trying to find something that would get the bastard. 11 more people died, and he felt like it was his fault the victims kept piling up the whole time. After a lot of hard work, Kakashi now finally had enough to convict him with. When it was all said and done, Kakashi was gonna have this guy by the balls!

* * *

><p>The Konoha police department had the place surrounded, with Kakashi leading the charge. It was a small warehouse that Kakuzu owned and it was where he was hiding at the moment. Kakashi had a feeling that Kakuzu had no idea what was coming for him, if he was actually staying in there and not trying to run. That's what Kakashi figured anyways.<p>

In total there were 3 snipers on the roof, 5 gunmen outside, and then Kakashi himself at the front door. He raised his hand up and knocked on the door, "Kakuzu, this is the police! We're going to ask you to come out here with your hands up!"

Kakuzu's deep rumbling voice called back, "Is this Kakashi Hatake that I'm talking to?"

"You know who it is you son of a bitch!" Kakashi yelled back.

Kakuzu still didn't open the door, but said, "I've got one question to ask you before I come out there."

Kakashi didn't actually care, but played along anyways. He wanted this guy finished, "Fine, what do you want to know?"

Kakuzu had a rather simple question, "Do you remember what I told you the very first day we met? Back when you called me in for questioning six months ago?"

Kakashi had to admit, that was the last thing he expect Kakuzu to ask, "Well yes, I do."

Kakuzu was heard chuckling inside, "And what did I say?"

Kakashi's mind slowly started to drift back to the day, hoping he'd be able to remember everything that had been said word for word. He had a feeling that this very important to Kakuzu.

_Flashback_

_Six months prior, when Kakashi and Kakuzu had first started facing off against one another, Kakashi had brought Kakuzu in to question him about the mask. It was gonna be difficult since Kakuzu was a very smart man who wasn't going to give up information that could get to him into trouble. Kakashi was going to have to be very careful about what he said. _

_He sat across the table from Kakuzu, carefully mulling over what to say, "So sir, your name is Kakuzu?"_

"_You know my name," The man said shortly, "You wouldn't have called me in here if you didn't."_

_Kakashi was already off to a bad start, "Fair enough. So do you know why I've called you in here then?"_

_Kakuzu looked him over and then said, "The same you've been calling people in for the past month I'm guess, The Heartless Thief thing."_

_Kakashi loved how he phrased in just the right way to avoid suspension, "That would be the reason, yes. You see, something that belongs to you managed to end up at the most recent crime scene. Basically, the kind of mask that you're wearing, or piece of one anyways. In fact, you and I are the only two people in Konoha who wear it, according our mutual friend Majora, and I have an alibi. You understand how this makes you look, don't you?"_

_Kakuzu looked at him and honestly laugh, "Oh come on, a piece of a mask? That's all you've got. That and a dollar might get you a cup of coffee."_

_Kakashi was expecting more of a reaction, "So are you saying you didn't do it."_

_Kakuzu didn't seem to be the least bit phased, "I'm not gonna say another damn thing until you get me my lawyer."_

_Kakashi got up to leave, but he said before he did, "You know an innocent man wouldn't need a lawyer."_

_Kakuzu looked at Kakashi and said, "I don't need a lawyer, I just want to be careful. I'm a very careful person, and that makes me very tough to beat."_

_Kakashi looked Kakuzu in the eye, "Are you saying you and I are going to fight?"_

_Kakuzu chuckled very darkly, "I'm saying that people who do fight me lose. I'm saying that there are some battles that you should really just back away from. Do you know what I mean Mr. Hatake?"_

"_No, I don't," Kakashi said and slammed the door._

_Flashback End _

Kakashi relayed the basics of it back and asked, "So what about it?"

"I told you Kakashi, people who fight me lose, even if that means both of us have to lose," Kakuzu told him in a very cryptic voice, "It's not too late for you to turn around you know."

Kakashi wasn't backing off, "Fuck you. You've got 24 bodies on your head, so I'm not just gonna let you walk!"

Kakuzu figured as much, "From you, I'd expect no less. Please come in, the door's unlocked."

Kakashi beat on the door, "No, you come out here! I'm not an idiot Kakuzu, you could just gun me down the moment I walked in there. The deal is, you come out here with you hands up and we take you in. Don't make this harder than it has to be."

There was silence for a while and then Kakashi heard a click inside Kakuzu's place. Kakashi jumped out of the way of the door and yelled to the others in his walky-talky, "The suspect is armed! Repeat, the suspect is armed!"

Kakuzu yelled back out, "Calm yourself Kakashi, I was merely unlocking the door. Honestly, you're far too jumpy right now."

He opened the door and walked out with his hands up, just as Kakashi had asked him to. Slowly at first, then he picked up the pace a little bit. Kakashi grabbed him and put the handcuffs on him, "You're finally mine you damn psycho. You killed 24 people, but I've fucking got you."

"25," Kakuzu mumbled.

Kakashi blinked a couple of times and said, "What? What do you mean 25?"

Kakuzu was grinning under his mask, "I killed 25 people Kakashi, not 24. You know it's funny, the Konoha police department uses the same snipers for every single issue. If you just know how to get to one of them…"

Kakashi suddenly yanked the cuts up, hurting Kakuzu's wrists a quite a bit, "You rat bastard! What did you do?"

"Put me on that radio and I'll tell you," Kakuzu offered.

Kakashi knew better than to do that, "Yeah, like that'll happen."

A voice came over the radio, "_Is something wrong Kakashi? Why aren't you putting him in the car?"_

Kakashi pushed the button to say something back, but Kakuzu spoke before he could, "Metuka Fucoda!"

Kakashi knew that was the name of Oruca Fucoda's, one of the snipers, wife. Oruca came over the radio, "_Kakashi, how does he know my wife's name? Dammit Kakashi, ask him or I'll just shoot you both!"_

Kakashi didn't know if Oruca was serious, but he didn't want to find out, "I'm gonna ask you this again Kakuzu, what the hell did you do? How do you know Metuka's name?"

"Oh, we spent a little bit of time together. I guess you could say that I...captured her heart! Hahaha!" Kakuzu told him with an evil laugh added afterwards.

Kakashi cringed as Oruca's voice came over the radio again, "_What did he say? Is Metuka okay? For the love of god Kakashi, tell me Metuka's okay!"_

Kakashi couldn't bring himself to say anything. He just grabbed Kakuzu and tried to move him towards his car. Oruca kept yelling so Kakashi said in the radio, "Oruca, just shut up right now! We don't for sure what he's done! He's playing so don't fucking buy into it."

Before Kakashi could take his button of the radio, Kakuzu yelled, "I killed your wife! She begged for you to save her the whole time!"

Kakashi didn't get a chance to say anything after that. He felt something hit him in the gut and fell backwards, seeing that Kakuzu had been shot a in a spot that was just a little higher as he did. If Ocura had his head in the game he most likely would've kill Kakuzu in just one shot. However, he was too focused on his wife to do that.

As Kakashi laid there bleeding out, he started to wonder if this had been Kakuzu's big final move. It seemed so simple, so basic for something Kakuzu would do. Kakashi had a feeling that his had only just begun.

* * *

><p>Asuma Sarutobi was not happy right now. One of his brothers in blue had gone rogue and shot somebody because Kakuzu had killed his wife, Kakashi had gotten shot too, and he'd forced his partner Shikamaru to watch Kakashi until he got there. It was all fucking insane and Asuma didn't know what to do about any of it.<p>

He was making his way through the hospital, asking questions to a young officer that was next to him, "For fuck's sake, what the hell happened out there? How could capturing one guy go so wrong?"

The younger officer didn't know. He just nervously said back, "I don't know sir, shit just kind of hit the fan. The doctors have been looking after the two who got shot for the past hour and it looks like Kakuzu's gonna be paralyzed for the rest of his life."

Asuma rolled his eyes, "Oh great, now he's gonna sue the fucking city or something like that. At least that means he's not going anywhere."

Asuma was going to regret that statement. The younger officer was leading him to Kakuzu's room to get a look at him. He got the door and said, "He's in here sir, I don't know if he'll talk much though."

Asuma thought differently, "He'll talk alright. One way or another I'll make him talk about how he's pulled all of this off."

He threw the door open and saw the only thing that could've shocked him more than actually seeing Kakuzu. Kakuzu wasn't there at all. It was just an empty bed, "Where is he? you said this guy was paralyzed!"

The officer didn't know, "I'm just as lost as you are sir. No one saw him leave or anything!"

Asuma turned around and asked, "You said before that Kakashi's in the room acrossed from him, right?"

The officer nodded and walked over, "Yeah, but I don't think he'll be gone too. I mean there's just no way…"

He opened the door to see that neither Kakashi nor Shikamaru was anywhere to be seen. Asuma was starting to get worried, "Who let these guys out? I know it's not Shikamaru, he's not that stupid. What's going on here?"

The younger officer didn't know, but one thing did stick out to him, "It almost seems like that Kakuzu guy planned this whole, you know? I mean, he made them get shot, did in a way so that both of them could go to the same hospital, and then both of them vanished."

Asuma was starting to think the kid was right, "What you're saying could be true...Kakuzu you sick little freak, what are planning?"

* * *

><p>Kakashi's eyes slowly started to flutter open as looked around the room he was in. It was dark and damp, almost like a basement, and was nothing but wall to wall cement with a door. He saw that Shikamaru was in their as well, out like a light, along with four other knocked out people. He didn't recognize any of the others and he had no idea how he got here. The gunshot wound to his stomach was all bounded up and fixed so that it wouldn't bleed anymore.<p>

Before long he started to look at the other people in there to see if he could learn anything about them. One was a woman with a slim build, short brown hair, a necklace with a blue charm on it, and two large hoop earrings. She was rather pretty, and was wearing a red T-shirt with jeans.

Another was a bulky man with a thin beard and a bandana on his head. He had wife beater on as well. Next to him was a thin man with long gray hair who was wearing nothing but a torn up pair of pants, tattoos covered his chest. The last person in there was a woman who was dressing rather trashily. She had on a ton of makeup and was wearing the sluttiest clothing Kakashi had ever seen, but it was made to look kind of elegant. The girl had red hair and a glasses as well.

Kakashi kept looking at all of them as Shikamaru started to wake up, "Oh my fucking head. Son of bitch man, that motherfucker hit me hard."

Kakashi was glad that Shikamaru was awake to explain all of this shit to him, "Oh thank god, you're up. You mind telling me what in the hell is going on here?"

Shikamaru rubbed his head, "Somebody dressed as a doctor came into your room and knocked me out while you were sleeping. That's really all I know. As far as how they got us here, I don't have any idea."

"Hey, where the fuck am I? Who the fuck are you guys? What the fuck is going here?" The gray haired man swore, finally waking up.

Kakashi turned towards the man, "I'm Detective Kakashi Hatake and this Detective Shikamaru Nara. We're not really sure why we're here or where we actually are. Who are you?"

"Hidan, that's my damn name," The man said in an angry voice, "Who are the rest of these fucks?"

The one with the bandana sat up, "I'm Kitsuchi, and I've already heard who all of you guys are. Should we try and wake the other two up?"

The one with red hair got up, "No need. My name is Karin by the way."

The last girl woke up as well, "Man, you guys are loud. The name's Eclair. Do all of you really have no clue what we're here for?"

All of them looked around and just shook their heads. Only Shikamaru and Kakashi knew each other, so there was nothing for them go off from. They were lost as to why and how they were here.

A deep voice came over an intercom that was in the corner of the room, "_Good evening everyone. Are you ready for a little test? I can see that you're all curious as to why I have brought you here."_

All of them recognized the voice, "Wait a minute, is that?"

"_Before you ask, yes, this is your old friend Kakuzu aka, The Heartless Thief," _The voice confirmed, "_I think you've all just found that thing that links you guys together. You all are in some way related to me."_

Eclair had a great bit of fear in her eyes, "Kakuzu? Is that really you?"

Kakuzu came over the intercom again, "_Yes, it's me my old sweetheart. How've you been?"_

Eclair didn't respond. It was Kitsuchi who spoke next, "Wait, how do all of us know you?"

Kakuzu was happy to explain that, "_Oh that's really quite simple. Kitsuchi, you were a one of the biggest dicks I ever had to deal with in highschool and you now beat your own fucking wife. Eclair, I gave my heart to you in highschool and you stomped on it before you went off to college and it took me years to get over you. Karin, you just went and stole something from me, not very smart. Hidan, my old partner in crime, you fucked me over in a big way just about 6 months ago. And finally, Kakashi Hatake, you were the one who put a stop to my mission of pulling the hearts out of every asshole in Konoha. You've all sinned against me, and now you're going to pay. Expect for you Mr. Nara, you're free to go."_

Shikamaru didn't understand, "What do you mean I'm free to go?"

"_I never meant for my man to take you. You're kidnapping was an accident," _Kakuzu told him, "_I've got a path to lead you down so that you may leave. Unlike the rest of them, I didn't infect you."_

Karin suddenly got afraid, "Infect us? Infect us with what?"

Kakuzu chuckled, "_A little drug that I had a friend of mine get. It'll kill you within half an hour. Once that time is up, your hearts will explode, as that was as close as I could get to ripping them out. I'm soon going to unlock the door that is in front of you, and then you're going to find that past it are six other doors. One of them will lead Shikamaru out of here, the other five will have your names on them. Only one of you will get the cure for what I've infected you with. To get it, you'll have to pass through a special room that I've made to test each of you. The first one through their room get's the cure and may have an audience with me to ask all of the questions they wish. You'll find out why and how I've done all of this, just like you wanted. Remember, half an hour or you all die. Have fun!"_

The voice turned off and Karin, Hidan, and Kitsuchi suddenly ran for the door to start the race. Kakashi stayed behind to to talk to Shikamaru, "I know you're probably gonna wanna stay and help me, but you need to get out of here. You've got a wife and a baby on the way. Don't worry about me for now, you just get going. Tell the others where we are once you get back home, okay?"

Shikamaru wasn't gonna argue, "Fine, but be careful. Something tells me those tests aren't gonna be easy."

Shikamaru ran through the door as well and Kakashi turned to Eclair, "Aren't you gonna go and try for the test like the others?"

Eclair thought for a second then sighed, "I don't know. You seem like a good guy...I don't think I deserve to live instead of you. The others maybe, but not you. You need to stop Kakuzu."

Kakashi didn't feel like that at all, "At least go and try your test. I might fail mine and then you'll need to stop Kakuzu instead of me."

Eclair hadn't thought of that, "Good point. If we both pass through, you take the cure."

Kakashi didn't understand why this girl he'd never met was willing to die for him, "You're oddly worried about my well being, you know that?"

Eclair didn't say anything. She just slowly walked towards that door and eventually asked in a quiet voice, "Is it true...about Kakuzu being the heartless thief?"

There was no doubt in Kakashi's mind, "Oh yeah, that son of bitch killed them all."

"Well if that's true, then everything that he did is my fault. I can't tell you why for now, but maybe if both of us make it I will," Eclair said, and opened the door to leave the room.

Kakashi wanted to ask her more, but she left before he could. He didn't know what, but Kakashi found something about this girl very intriguing. It was almost like he was drawn to her in some way. However, he had to go and make an attempt to beat his room. A big part of him was wondering what kind of horrors the others were facing in their rooms. While he knew he couldn't be anything good, he just hoped it wasn't too bad.

* * *

><p>Kitsuchi had indeed been a bully during his time on earth. It was trait he'd picked up from his father, a man who would beat him and put cigarettes out on his neck. A horrid man to be sure, but that didn't excuse some of the things that Kitsuchi had done in his life. He'd beaten his classmates, mainly the small and weaker ones like Kakuzu, up in school to make him feel better about himself, he'd beaten his wife to keep control over her, and he beat his son, just because he could. Just like his father before him, Kitsuchi had become an abuser. Kakuzu had every intention of making him pay for that, with the most fitting punishment he could possibly think of for the man.<p>

When Kitsuchi entered the room, he found that there were three desks inside of it. One desk had some kind of bunsen burner on it, another had a large clamp on it that someone could easily break their arm with. The last one had a huge knife on it and glass measuring cup. There was a strange buzzing coming from the ceiling as well. Kitsuchi looked it all over, "What in the hell is all this for?"

Kakuzu's voice came over the intercom once again, "_Hello Kitsuchi, I'm so glad you could make it. First things first, don't bother trying to talk to this intercom, this is a mere recording. It's going to tell you what you have to do if you want to leave this room. What you see on each of theses desks represent some of the things you've done to your friends and families over the years. The table with the knife is the blood you've taken for them, the one with the clamp is the bones you've broken, and the bunsen burner represents the those you've burned yourself. You must break at least one arm, fill that glass about half way full with your blood, just enough so that you'd be able to live, and burn around 40 percent of your arms. Once you do that, you're free to go. You may have noticed the buzzing above your head. That would be the sound of electrical wires that I've cut in half and conduct electricity though. If you take more stay still for more than five minutes, the wires will fall and electrocute you, speeding up the chemical in your blood and popping your heart. Your five minutes begins now. Good luck."_

Kitsuchi just kind of stood dumbfounded for a few seconds. Kakuzu actually wanted him to to all of this stuff to himself? Finally, after remembering that he had work to do, Kitsuchi ran towards one of the tables to get start. It was amazing and disturbing what humans are willing to do to survive, even to the point of bring pain on themselves.

He tried to use his head to decided what to do first. Kitsuchi knew he didn't want to try and break his arm if it has all cut up or burned, so as much as it sounded horrible, he was going to break his arm first. So he put his arm under the clamp and slowly started to lower, twisting the handle on the side of it to do so. It eventually reached his arm and started to press down on it. At first he felt no pain, but the cold, metallic clamp began to put more and more pressure on him arm. No matter how much he seemed to press down though, his arm just wouldn't break. Every time he thought that it was gonna snap, it just kept staying. The whole thing was both a psychological and physical hell.

Finally, after clamp was pretty much touching the table, his arm made a loud snap and Kitsuchi felt a sharp pain shoot up and down his arm. He screamed at the pain, "AHHHHH! FUCK ME!"

For about a minute, Kitsuchi just laid on the ground and held on to his arm for dear life. Was this how his son had felt when he broke his arm for the first time? It didn't matter for now, he had more things to do.

Kitsuchi forced himself to the next table, the one with bunsen burner. He saw that there was some lighter fluid on the desk as well, which Kitsuchi realized could be used to help him. If he put that on his arms, he could just light all of it at once and be done with it.

He poured the lighter fluid all over his arm and, with a lot of hesitation, lit the bunsen burned and threw his arms over it. What followed was easily the greatest amount of pain that Kitsuchi had ever felt. It was nothing but raw, searing, burning pain! Kitsuchi looked around to try and find some way to put the fire out. Eventually he just laid down and started rolling on the ground, hoping that would do it. It worked, but not fast enough for Kitsuchi's liking.

As he looked down at his arms, Kitsuchi was starting to feel like he might not have made the right choice going in the order he did. There was almost no way that he could hold a knife with his arms like this, but he was going to have to try. He got himself to the last table and looked down at the knife and the cup.

One of his arms was broken and he could hardly even lift it, so he knew that he wasn't going to be picking it up with that one. He lifted his other mangle arm up and tired to lift the knife, but his burned hand dropped the knife because it hurt to much to hold it. After a couple seconds more of pain, he tried to pick it up again, this time ignoring the pain. Finally, he forced himself to make a cut on his other arm and then quickly move the cup to try and fill it. Thanks to the previously mentioned pain, he was couldn't bring himself to make a very big cut and so he didn't get much blood. There was no way he'd get it half full at this rate.

With all of this on his mind, Kitsuchi didn't even notice the cup slipping out of his hand. Before he could stop it, the cup fell and shattered into a million tiny pieces before his eyes, "NOOOOOOOO!"

He looked at the intercom and yelled, "Please Kakuzu, don't kill me! It wasn't my fault, the cup just slipped. If you give me another I'll do it, I swear that I will! Please, don't do this!"

Kakuzu didn't come over the intercom at all, much to Kitsuchi's fear. He heard the ceiling start to retract and waited for the wires to bring him his death. However, they never did. Instead, a cup fell from the ceiling and Kitsuchi was barely able to catch it with his good arm.

He yelled at the ceiling, "Thank you! Oh sweet jesus thank you!"

Kitsuchi grabbed the knife again and this time didn't worry much about his own safety. He just took the knife and dug it into his arm as deeply as he could, then positioned the cup so that it was in the right spot to catch the blood. Although it was only just barely worked, the cup filled up about half way. The door could be heard unlocking and Kitsuchi sighed in relief.

He sprinted at the door and ran the hell out of there, praying he'd never have to enter again.

* * *

><p>Karin had spent just everyday of her life after getting out of high school trying to screw over some poor sap. When Karin had left high school, she was a tall glass of water. Nicely sized breasts, a heart shaped buttox, long red hair, and a tounge that could bring any man to his knees, thanks to it's skill.<p>

For the first year out of school, she just seduced young attractive men and had them pay her way. When they stopped being willing to pay, she'd rob them blind and then drop their asses. For the next year, since she'd grown tired of seducing men, she started to become an actress. After sleeping her way to the middle for a couple of years where she did a couple tv shows and a movie, her career started to go downhill, so she went back to seducing men again. It was even easier now, as her past a B-list celebrity made her desirable to all kinds of different men. All she had to do was put on some slutty make-up and where a low top, and then ride the gravy train until they stopped paying. Her most recent target had been a man who worked for Kakuzu and he was buying her whatever. The woman was a fucking hellcat in bed.

When he'd taken her to Kakuzu's house and she saw how fucking rich the guy was, she decided to make her big move. Karin stole just about everything she could get her hands out and booked it the hell out there. She'd made a killing of his possession, so at the time she thought it was a great plan. Looking back, that was terrible idea.

Now he was stuck in the clutches of some madman, with no idea as to what in the hell to do. She looked around the room and found that there was a table inside. It had various substance on it, most of which Karin couldn't identify.

After a few brief moments, Kakuzu's voice came on over the intercom, "_Well if it isn't the little thief who stole all of my precious things. This is Kakuzu talking to you of course, via a prerecorded message. Now there's something I want you to understand before I begin. I usually don't it this seriously when someone steals something from me. You see, there was an object among the things that you stole, the last possession I had of my wife and son. It was a card that she'd helped him make when he was 4. While it wasn't very good, I loved it because of what it meant to them. The adorable little thing was inside a solid gold frame, so thats why you took it. Knowing that you probably threw the card away just about drove me mad. Well, more mad than I already was anyways."_

Karin was starting quickly starting to realize the situation she was in as Kakuzu continued, "_I looked into who you were and what you did. Now I must say Karin, it appears that you're nothing more than very high priced, long term hooker. You slept with men for material gain, simple as that. The only thing that you don't do that a hooker does is take drugs. Which is what those substances on the table are for. Each one is a different type of drug. They can all be snorted, I made it easy for you, and there's five of them in total. What you need to do is take four of the five drugs. You can pick them, but I must warn, some of them have very powerful effects when compained. I'm sure a prostitute such as yourself will have no problem figuring out which ones do what though. If you can take four of them and not pass out, you may leave at get the cure. Good luck, and have fun."_

Karin wish desperately that she could ask him a question, but he'd said that the message was prerecorded. All she could do was look at the contents of the table and try to figure out what they were. Problem was though, she'd never done drugs a day in her life. She found the practice disgusting and unnecessary, something that only fools would do. However, Kakuzu had declared her a prostitute, an accusation that she strongly resented, and prostitutes were supposed to do that stuff. While Karin felt that wasn't entirely true, she wanted to hurry up and get this over with as well.

She found that there was a straw on the table and she'd enough movies to know what it was for. Karin check each of the drugs carefully, trying to decided what one not to take. Most of them looked like pure substances that were made into a powder, but one of them had other things in it. It had some little chunks and things in them and over all it just din't look right to her. In the end, she pushed that one aside and decided to try the other drugs on the table.

The first one was a white powder that was cocain if she had to guess. She put the straw by the powder and sucked up into her nose. The feeling that came over her when she did it was indescribable. It had her shaking like a madwoman, but she eventually got control of herself and moved on to the next drug.

The next one was something that looked like a bunch of tiny blue crystally things. Karin wasn't even gonna try to figure out what it was, she just brought the straw down and sucked it up into her nose. This one gave her more of a jolt than the white powder had, but it didn't make her feel too much shakier.

After that, she went to some kind of red powder that she, once again, couldn't identify. It didn't matter, she just snorted it up like before. Her nose was so raw from from the other drugs that she didn't even notice it at this point, except for the slightly added zing she got.

Very last was a weird purplish kind of stuff that Karin just kind of looked at for a couple of second. Her legs were so shaky and her whole body felt numb. It took all of her focus to to get the straw where she needed it to suck up the strange stuff, but she eventually did it. For a few seconds she didn't notice anything. In fact, she almost felt fine.

However, all of a sudden a sharp pain came on her chest. What Karin didn't know is that by using both the red and purple drugs, she ampt up the cocaine that she'd taken to about a hundred. It made her heart race and before long, the thing exploded just like a balloon. The drugs must have had some kind of reaction to the other drug that Kakuzu had placed in her system.

Karin, the unofficial hooker, had made the big bet and lost. Her body was done for once and for all, it was of no more use to the men she'd seduced before. She'd always been afraid that something she put in her body would kill her, she just never thought that it would be drugs. It was cruel type of irony to be sure.

* * *

><p>Hidan was on a whole other level of pissed right now. Kakuzu, that cocksucker, had locked him up in what looked like some sick fuck's basement and knew he was going to be put through some kind of bullshit test. Test? What the fuck was this, elementary school? He hadn't even done anything that bad to Kakuzu, not in the long run anyways.<p>

Hidan only had one thing that he gave a shit about, and that was making sure that his bloodlust got fed. He loved to kill things, mainly getting to watch them bleed out and watching the life leave their eyes. So when Kakuzu came to him and asked him for a little bit of help with a little bit of murder, he was happy to do it. All that Kauzu had asked was the he got to rip the heart out when Hidan was all done. This had gone well the first few times and Hidan actually had a lot of fun with it. Much like things do however, it began to unravel.

Hidan got tired of knowing that his cuts weren't the last thing done to the body and he was even more tired of having to wait for Kakuzu's say so just to kill someone. So, he decided that he was just gonna go out on his own. He even took a piece of Kakuzu's weird mask and left it at the crime scene so that the man would get caught. Yet, that didn't end up working, at least not until six months later. Look where that dumbass plan got him!

When Hidan walked into his room and started to look around. There was a large hunting knife on the life on in the center of the room and four cages in each corner of the room. Multiple somethings was growling inside of them, but Hidan wasn't sure what they were. He walked into the center of the room and picked up the knife that and took a good look at, "You are a pretty little thing, aren't you? High quality, nice feel, well maintained, the whole nine yards."

Hidan's admiring or the knife was ended when Kakuzu's voice coming over the intercom, "_Hello there Hidan, this a prerecorded message from an old friend of yours. To clarify, this is Kakuzu, and we're not exactly friends either. I thought that we were gonna be friends, but you fucked me over in a big way. Thanks to you, Kakashi began to follow me. Now, I'm going to make you pay for that. In each of the four cages around you, there are three rabid dogs. They're a lot like you, creatures that kill just for the sake of killing you know. Well if you want to get out of this room, you'll have to prove you're the best of these horrible creatures. I'm going to realse these dogs. Let's see if you can kill all of them, there's twelve in total. Good luck and do try to have fun."_

Hidan's blood ran cold as he heard all of the cages clank open. He went right into his killer mode, getting his knife in killing position. The first of the dogs ran out of his cage, snapping and snarling at Hidan. It jumped and went for a killshot at the man's neck. Having been in life or death fights before, Hidan knew how to keep him calm. Once the dog got close to him, he grabbed it by the neck and diverted it away from him, stabbing the mutt as he did. Not just once, but as many times as he could to make sure that the dog was dead.

However, that landed him in a spot of trouble, as another dog came up behind him and bit his leg. Hidan whirled around and stabbed the dog in the head with one swift motion, being sure to end it in just one shot. Two more dogs ran at him, these ones at the same time. He was gonna have to be careful this time.

One of the dogs he tried to kick away, getting a nice hit on it's stomach which sent it flying into the wall. As he did that, the other dog planned on bitting the gray haired man's face. However, Hidan grabbed the dog's head before he could, his hands were now covered with blood from the others dogs. He was forced to drop the knife, so he'd have to get back later. Right now, his focus was on the foaming mouth that just snapping and snapping at him.

Hidan took a deep breath and used all of his force and finesse to snap the dog's neck. That was three down, eight to go, and it looked like the dog that he'd kicked away was back for revenge. He got his knife picked back up, but not before the dog bit his arm. After throwing it off, Hidan did a short little roll and stabbed the fourth dog in the neck.

He was panting at this point, already starting to get out breath. That wasn't something he got to do long though, because three of the dogs started to attack one of his legs. The plan was to take them out, but another one of the dogs was coming at his head as well. Hidan decided that it was best not to fuck around with that one, so he got right between the eyes with the knife. Once again, Hidan planned to take out the dogs on his leg, which were tearing the flesh from his bone and squirting blood everywhere, but another dog decided to get in on the mix.

More snarling and snapping came at Hidan, who grabbed it by it's snout and pushed it up. This allowed him to slash it's neck with his knife, covering him with dog blood as so much of it began to squirt out. That was when Hidan felt one of the most painful things he'd ever felt in his life. The three dogs on his leg ripped it right off from his body, making Hidan scream in pain, "Oh, you fuckers! You are gonna wish you hadn't done that!"

Hidan's bone as now sticking out of a stub on his leg, all broken and nasty. He rolled himself around, which hurt like hell thanks to his leg, and got the first of the dogs with his knife at the base of it's neck. This caused another one of them to come at him, so Hidan stabbed it three times in the stomach. That was another dead dog right there. The last one turned to snap at him, but Hidan shoved the knife up through it's snout, killing it instantly.

Only three dogs were left now, and they were all coming at him to finish what their friends at started. Hidan raised up his knife and threw it at one of the dogs, the blade landing right in one of it's eye sockets, taking it out with a whimper. The other two dogs were coming, but Hidan had a plan for them. When the first one reached him, he punched it in the face, stunning the dog for a second. After that, he grabbed the other dog and slammed it's head into the ground a couple of times, crushing its skull.

The last dog was back on it's feet and had started to run towards him again. This one Hidan just grabbed and strangled, not having to worry about anything else. In a minutes or two, the dog stopped thrashing and Hidan let it's limp body go.

Hidan had beaten the dogs, but at one hell of a price. He'd lost one of his legs and was bleeding like a motherfucker. However, he had heard the door unlock. With what little strength he had left, Hidan crawled over to the door and opened it. While he'd won his challenge, he had a feeling the worst was yet to come.

* * *

><p>Eclair really had broken Kakuzu's heart in high school. When school had first started, Kakuzu had few to no friends. The only person he felt really cared about him was Eclair, a beautiful young girl who had befriended him. She treated him like a human being, cared about him, showed him true human affection. So it had been no surprise to anyone when Kakuzu and Eclair ended up hooking during freshman year and dated all throughout high school, right up until senior year. It was the year that Eclair did something that she thought she did what was best for Kakuzu.<p>

The two of them were went off to college, and Eclair knew that he had started to depend on her heavily. She knew that if Kakuzu kept depending on her like that, it was going to make social life just about impossible for him. Eclair did what she felt she had to do. For Kakuzu's own good, she broke it off.

While it took him months to get over her, he did eventually move on and got married. In the end though, part of him had always resented Eclair for what she did. When he started making her revenge plots, he just had to add her in. It didn't help that she felt guilty now, like the whole Heartless Thief thing was her fault. How was she supposed to live with herself knowing that?

She walked into the room and just about felt like she was gonna be sick. Hearts hung around the room. Dozens of hearts, at least 24, hung from the ceiling, human hearts. Eclair had imagined she'd have to see something so horrible.

Kakuzu's voice came over the intercom, "_Well if it isn't my dear sweet Eclair. Hello my old sweetheart, I'm just here to let you know via a pre recorded message that I've thought of a very special test for you. Each of these hearts, that I tore out of their owners chest myself, has something inside of them. Some good, some bad. In one of them where is the key to let you exited this room. You'll have to crush hearts to find out which one it is. You're good at crushing hearts after all. There's a catch however, even more than just the nasty surprises in some of the hearts. For every heart you crush that doesn't have the key, I'll start to take minutes off from a countdown I'm going to start. You have fifteen minutes to find the key, and if you don't find it before then, I'll realse a gas in the room that will kill you. Have fun and I wish you good luck!"_

Eclair really did think that she was going to be sick at this point. It was the most disgusting thing she'd ever had to do. Hell, she'd never even thought about doing something this disgusting. Before she started, she looked up at the intercom, "I know that you might not be able to hear me...but I've just gotta say that I'm sorry. What I did, I really did have your best intrest at heart when I did them. Maybe I was wrong, I don't know to be honest. But I am sorry...oh so very sorry."

With that, she reached her hand out and touched the first of the hearts. It was nasty and slimy, blood was still all over it. This had been what kept some poor soul alive before this happened. However, she had to remember that her dying wouldn't bring these people back. Eclair squeezed the first heart and crushed it, quickly feeling something inside. She jerked her hand back immedaily, finding a knife inside of the heart the pierced her hand. Now she couldn't even tell if the blood on her hand was hers or the poor hearts.

She turned to the next heart, knowing that she'd just knocked a minute off from her time. Eclair cringed as she forced herself to reach out and grab it, getting that same gut wrenching feeling as she did. Once again, she crushed the heart, but this one had nothing in it.

There went another of her minutes right there. She kept doing this over and over again, praying she'd find a key. The next one actually had maggots inside of it, ass if the heart had started to rot or something. After that, she got another empty one, and then one that a bullet in it. Eclair didn't know what to make of that one.

Her time was slipping away from her and she knew it. If she'd had to guess, she'd say she had 8 minutes left after all that and 26 hearts left to choose from. It was all luck right now, which wasn't good for someone in a life or death situation. Before she knew what was going on, she felt the need to run to one of the corners of the room and throw up. She must have lost another minute just dealing with that.

She got so angry all of a sudden, that doing what she felt was right could lead to this. Eclair reached out and crushed two of the hearts in anger. One had a blade in it that just cut off one of her fingers, and the other...had a key inside of it.

There was an overwhelming sense of relief at getting the key, so much so that she just ran right to the door and unlocked it. She got luck, very luck in fact. This could've gone a much different direction. It would've been easy for her to die right then and there. Maybe luck was on her side? Maybe she fate wanted them to stop Kakuzu. There were a whole lot of maybes going on right now. Eclair was just going to use this luck while she still had it. Who knew what else was in store for her.

* * *

><p>Kakashi felt more than fear in his heart than he ever thought he would as he walked into the room that held his challenge. He'd spent the past year trying to stop Kakuzu, so he knew exactly what the man was capable of. It this guy wanted to make him feel fear and pain, he was more than able to think of the most fucked up way to do it. There was no way he could guess what was coming for him.<p>

He got into the room and saw that there was a window with no glass in it. Kakashi looked through it to see something that stung him to his core. There was a woman at the end of it, tied to a chair with something on her head. Her mouth was gagged and she couldn't say anything.

Kakashi knew she wasn't safe here, so she started to climb over to get her, "Just hold on miss, you'll be fine. I'm gonna get you out of here and back to where you belong."

Kakuzu's voice stopped him before he could go any further, "_Hello Mr. Hatake, or detective I suppose would be a better title. This is a pre-recorded Kakuzu here to give the rules of your challenge. The first rule that I have to tell is not to step through the window. If you do, that woman you see will die. You may not have notice this, but there is a collar around her neck. In that collar are blades, that will eject if you fail this challenge or climb through the window. There is a keypad next to your door that only she has the combination to. If you free her, she may simply leave untouched after giving you the combination. There will be a path for her to leave down. All you have to do to make sure she goes free is that target right on her head. You'll find a gun in your room, if you empty the clip before you hit the target, you fail. Simple."_

Kakashi looked at target, which he could hit easily from where he was at. Granted, he was a bit nervous about hitting her, but he still felt like he could do it if he just stayed calm. He knew it wouldn't be that easy though, and mumbled, "Okay, but what's the catch?"

Kakuzu's voice soon gave him an answer, "_Well, there is one condition. You see, I know that when you lost one of your eyes it had a great effect on your depth perception. Shortly after that, you started to wear contacts to fix the issue. I doubt that would've been able to become a police officer without it. That's not fair as far as I'm concerned. When my life turned upside down, I just had to deal with it. I want you to take those contacts out before you start shooting. Good luck making that shot. Have fun."_

Kakashi wanted to collapse on the ground when he heard that he had to try and make this shot without his contacts, or contact, more accurately. The risk to this woman's life just went up a whole hell of a lot! He didn't have much of a choice though. He looked around the room until he saw a table with at gun on it, a small handgun to be exact. Taking a deep breath, Kakashi walked over and grabbed the gun, talking his contact out and getting himself ready for this shot.

He raised up his gun with a definite plan in mind. For his first shot, he was going to fire very high, allowing him to see where his shot would land without risking hitting the woman. Gently squeezing the trigger, Kakashi fired of his first shot, which landed no where near where he was aiming. It was lower than it should've been and more to the left. Kakashi could feel his palm sweating at just how far off he was. The woman in the chair looked horrified as well, with a look like, 'I'm doomed,' on her face.

No matter how bad it was though, he needed to fire again to check where it landed. He adjust his shot based on his past results, hoping he'd improve at least a little. Kakashi fired another fear filled shot above her head, this time a bit closer to where he was aiming, but it was still a little to the left and too low.. It still wasn't close enough for him though, not to take the shot.

He took out the gun's clip to see that he had 4 shots left. That was no where near as many as Kakashi would've liked. Adjusting his shot one again, Kakashi fired off another round, trying to hit above the woman's head. Now this one, this one was just a few inches from where Kakashi had been aiming. A small bit of relief was seen in the woman's eyes and Kakashi was a little relieved as well.

Now that he had a little more confidence, Kakashi considered trying for the shot. However, it just seemed safer to try one more practice round. He raised the gun up, once again making a small adjustment, and fired off one last shot, hitting almost exactly where he was aiming. Thanks to this, and with two shots left, Kakashi felt better than ever about trying this.

He got his shot ready, with a small bit of his nerves still inside of him, and fired off a tension filled shot. Both the woman's and Kakashi's eyes filled with dread as they saw where the shot landed. It had grazed the woman's head, leaving some blood and just barely not hitting her.

She started shake her head and tried to say over and over again, 'Don't fire, don't fire!"

Kakashi felt horrible both about scaring the woman and almost killing her. He knew he had to at least try the shot once again, but he couldn't blame the woman for not wanting him to try. She'd lost faith in him, so he needed to have complete faith in himself.

Ignoring the woman's objections he brought the gun up again to prepare for the shot of his life. He took the deepest breath he could, and slowly let it out as he pulled the trigger. At first Kakashi closed his eyes, not sure if he wanted to know whether he'd made the shot or not. The woman's happy grunting forced him to open his eyes, letting him know his shot had hit right on point. Something in the woman's chair clicked and whatever it was let her untie herself. She ripped the collar off from herself and ran out of the chair and at Kakashi.

Kakashi sighed in relief as she jumped over the window saying, "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

Kakashi beamed as started to put his contact back in, "It was my pleasure Ms. I'm just glad you're okay. So what's the combo to get out of this place?"

The woman quickly recited, "Justice, the guy with the mask said it was the word justice!"

Kakashi turned to the keypad and put in the code. A click came from the door and Kakashi ripped it wide open, "Let's get the hell out of here while we still can. You go home to your husband. I'm just gonna try and put a stop to this."

The woman nodded dumbly and the ran the hell away. He didn't blame her for that, he really wished he could do that same.

* * *

><p>Five traps had started this whole thing, and now only four people remained, as the woman Kakashi had saved quickly found her way out. Yet, the others still needed to stay so that they could survive. Well three in a half, considering the state that Hidan was in. He'd lost a lot of blood and a fucking leg. The odds weren't good for him being the one who made out of their alive. All four of them got out around the same time, Hidan took a little longer since he had to crawl, and met up at large steel door, with a table just in front of it. For some reason, there was a small vial on it with something inside of it.<p>

When Kakashi, Eclair, and Kitsuchi first got the table, before they could even say anything to one another, they heard something crawling at them. At first they thought it was another one of Kakuzu's tricks, but it turned out to be something much frightening. It was just Hidan, crawling and swearing, "Hey you fuckers! Don't touch the damn table until I get there!"

Kitsuchi was shocked at the state he was in, "And I thought that I was all messed up. What the hell happened to him?"

"Looks like a pack of hyenas got to him," Eclair noted.

Hidan was close enough to her here and said, "Close, it was a pack of dogs. Aw, shit, this thing really hurts!"

Kakashi couldn't believe this guy was still moving, "How much fucking blood have you lost man?"

Hidan was leaving a trail of red behind him, "I don't know...not too much though! I can still make it!"

Eclair watched him try to each his blood soaked hand on the table and said, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Fuck off…" Hidan was getting so weak that he could barely talk, "...I'm just...fine!"

Hidan put his hand on the table, but blood made it slip off right away. He slammed his head onto the ground, knocking him out. The man was losing so much blood and at such a fast rate. He'd be dead in just a few minutes. It was more or less down to just the three of them know.

Kakuzu once again came over the intercom, "_Ah, it's nice to see that you all made it. This is Kakuzu, but I'm coming to you live this time. I must say, I'm impressed that three of you made it this far. You see, I'm going to give you one final challenge, and it's a relatively simple one. All you have to do is decided which of you is going to get the cure, as there's only enough for one of you."_

Kitsuchi suddenly pointed to the vial on the table, "So this, right here! This is the cure?"

The intercom once again spit out Kakuzu's voice, "_I never said anything like that."_

Kitsuchi grabbed the vial, "So what if you never said it, this has to be the cure! What's to stop me from taking this."

Kitsuchi started to step away as Kakashi and Eclair started to step closer to him, "Don't be rash about this! We need to be reasonable here dammit!"

Kakuzu's voice started to warn him, "_If you take that, you'll be robbing yourself of my challenge."_

Kitsuchi didn't care about any challenge, "Fuck that! I'm gonna survive this damn thing no matter what!"

Before anyone could stop him, Kitsuchi ripped the top off from the vial and drank the contents. He smirked victoriously, but not for long. His mouth soon started to ooze bubbles and this strange spit, he could be heard choking and blubbering all the while. He soon fell to the ground, convulsing and spitting up blood.

Kakashi leaned down and looked at the man, "What in the hell is happening to him? Didn't he take the cure?"

Kakuzu knew he was going to have to explain, "_Oh, that was just a decoy one. It actually had a deadly chemical in it. That was so that I could weed out another fool. Now the real crue, that's under the table. Feel free to take it any time you life. Just keep in mind, there's only enough for one of you to take it. Oh, I feel that I should work you, the floor underneath you won't be their much longer. You see, it'll start to pull out from under you soon enough with a little device I installed. You'd be shocked how cheap I got it for. Basically, you've got a minute to decided who gets it. Best of luck!"_

Kakashi turned right to Eclair. When he looked into the woman's eyes, he just felt something. It wasn't love, too soon for that, but there was for sure something there. He just couldn't let her throw her life away for his, "You take the cure! Once this Kakuzu thing is over, I'll have nothing left in my life. I'm sure that you'll have something."

Eclair shook her head, as she also felt some kind of connection to this man, "No, it's my fault this whole thing even started. If I hadn't broken Kakuzu's heart like that, none of this would've happened. I need to pay for what I've done."

Kakashi saw no logic in that, "Look, I'm not letting you do it! None of this was your fault and I'm a cop, I need to protect pe, mph!"

He was cut off by Eclair shoving his mask down and kissing him. Between the shock of that and floor starting to recede, Kakashi wasn't even aware of Eclair starting to push him towards the door. Eclair back up towards the floor and Hidan and Kitsuchi's body fell down somewhere Kakashi couldn't see. They quickly heard ground moving, letting them know the drop wasn't far.

Eclair was still backing up, and Kakashi screamed 'No!' as she just let herself fall to whatever was underneath. Kakashi didn't know if she was gonna live or die right away, but he was afraid that she was gonna die from not taking the cure. It was clear what she'd wanted him to do, so he took the cure before the table could fall and drank the contents of the vial. The door behind him unlocked, letting Kakashi know it was time to see Kakuzu. There was a lot to see what that man had to answer for, and kakashi was eager to see what he would say. This would be an interesting conversation.

* * *

><p>Kakashi stepped into Kakuzu's lair to find the man lying in a wheelchair, barely able to move. It looked liked he could hardly move. Kakuzu seemed all too happy to see the detective, "There you are Mr. Hatake. I just knew that you'd be the one who made it to the end. You seemed to fare much better from our little gunshot wound than I did. Not important, please, ask me anything you like. My answers will be completely honest!"<p>

The first thing Kakashi had to ask was simple, "How much time does she have left before whatever you put into her, kills her?"

Kakuzu knew he was talking about Eclair, "Around 12 minutes left. After that, her heart will just pop like a balloon. Assuming the fall didn't kill her of course. This little base of mine is on a steep hillside after all, with lots of gravel. It's more like a small mountain really. She had to go the whole way down, good luck with that shit."

Kakashi had so many things he wanted to ask, "How did you do any of this? I mean, fucking look at you!"

Kakuzu just laughed at him, "When you have the kind of money I've got lying around, you can do just about anything. Even pull the wool over a couple of cop's eyes."

Kakashi just kept thinking of more and more questions to ask, but decided to ask none of them. There was one that just kept coming back that he felt he should ask, "Why Kakuzu? Why did you do this shit? Why did you do any of it? The killing, the ripping out the hearts, the revenge, why go through all this damn effort for something this wretched?"

Kakuzu looked at him for a few brief moment's in nothing but silence. Then he finally said, "Because humanity was a mistake. It was some kind of horrible cosmic mistake, and I had to let the world know that. Our lives only improve if some else suffers. What's the fucking point to any of this? It's all a fucked up little joke, that's what it is. That's why I did it all. I did it because nothing else matters."

Kakashi had a hard time believing someone could ever to this point in their life, and yet here the man was, in just that kind of state, "Well alright then...so now what? Do I have to kill you? Do you have to kill me? What the fuck are we supposed to do."

Kakuzu once again just took the time to stare at him, and then said, "Now you have a few different options. You can kill me, try and make me pay for what I've done."

Kakashi had no interest in causing more death, "You won't do anything now. You're little test is all over now. You've made everyone pay for hurting them. We'll never forget you. The world will never forget you...that's what you really wanted."

Kakuzu was impressed he got it, "Well said...then what do you want?"

Kakashi could only think of one thing that he wanted, "The cure, do you have anymore of it?"

Kakuzu pointed to a self on the side of the room, "They're right over there."

Kakashi saw a shelf full of vials on the counter and went over and picked on of them up. He examined the liquid to make sure that it was the right stuff before he turned around and started to leave, "Good bye Kakuzu...may you rot in hell you heartless son of a bitch."

With those words he opened the door and jumped down to try and find Eclair. Hopefully Eclair had survived and he could just give the cure to her. He didn't know what, but something and linked their paths together. Kakashi just prayed that one could thing could come from all this.

_Four years latter_

Kakashi was tossing back in forth in his bed, something clearly had him completely and utterly scared. He kept mumbling in his sleep, "No! No! No! Get away from me! Get away I said!"

The woman lying next to him started to shake him awake, "Kakashi, get up! It's not real, just wake up."

Kakashi's eyes shot open and he woke panting, "Oh god...I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think they might actually be getting better. That was the least terrifying one I had. Sorry if I woke you sweetie."

Eclair kissed him on the cheek and said, "It's okay babe, I get them all the time to. I almost died sliding down that mountain thing and you just barely got to me into time to get that cure."

Kakashi leaned back down and put his arm around her. He and Eclair had started dating after the Kakuzu incident, since they were the only ones who could understand each other's pain. Kakuzu had been incarcerated after Shikamaru told them where he was and was given the death penalty shortly after that. They were each other's salvation in life. For them, nothing else matter but each other. It was small consolation, but at least it was something.

Kakashi closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep. However, he kept hearing Kakuzu's voice in his head, "_Hello there...are you ready for another test?"_


End file.
